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By JTA - May 17, 2017
Originally appeared here in Arutz Sheva
Israel’s ambassador to Nigeria donated the embassy’s fund for an Independence Day celebration to establish a soccer league in the African nation for refugee children.
Ambassador Guy Feldman canceled the embassy’s Yom Haatzmaut reception and set up the league for 225 children who escaped the Boko Haram terrorist organization, Ynet reported. The embassy provided uniforms, balls and coaches, according to Ynet. Read More
(Photo: Ziv Medical Center)
By JNS.org
Originally appeared here in Algemeiner.com
Less than a week after a suspected chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib province, Israel’s cabinet agreed to examine a proposal to bring Syrian children in need of medical care to the Jewish state for treatment.
At a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz proposed bringing the wounded children — some of whom are currently in Turkey — to Israel. Read More
(photo: Water Gen)
By JTA and Eric Cortellessa - April 4, 2017
Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel
TEL AVIV — An Israeli company whose technology made a splash at last week’s AIPAC conference has signed deals to produce drinking water — by extracting it from the air — in India and Vietnam, two countries that have long faced shortages.
Water Gen inked an agreement last week with India’s second-largest solar company to produce purified water for remote villages in the country. Earlier, the company arranged with the Hanoi government to set up water generators in the Vietnamese capital.
“The government of Vietnam greatly esteems the technological developments in Israel, and I hope that the Israeli technology that we supply to Vietnam will significantly help to improve water conditions in the country,” Water Gen President Mikhael Mirilashvili said after the signing in Hanoi, according to a statement. Read More
(photo: Maktabat al-Fanoos promotional video, YouTube)
By JTA - April 4, 2017
Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel
A program to distribute free books in Arabic to Arab-Israeli preschoolers is distributing its two millionth book.
Maktabat al-Fanoos, Arabic for “Lantern Library,” is operated by the Ministry of Education, in partnership with the Grinspoon Foundation Israel, founder of the Hebrew book program for Jewish Israeli preschoolers, Sifriyat Pijama, and Price Philanthropies, which funds Bidayat early childhood centers. The Grinspoon Foundation also sponsors the PJ Library, which provides Jewish-themed books in English for Jewish-American pre-schoolers.
Maktabat al-Fanoos was founded in January 2014 and gives out eight books a year to 97,000 Arab-Israeli children ages 3-5 in kindergarten and pre-k classrooms. All children in government preschools get the books for free and children in semi-private schools get the books at cost. Read More
(Photo: Shabtai Amedi)
By Abigail Klein Leichman - March 19, 2017
Originally appeared here in Israel21c
On a winter night inside the Mayer Davidov Garage in the Talpiot industrial area of Jerusalem, some 500 university students, mechanics, high-techies and senior citizens — wearing kippahs, kaffiyehs and everything in between — played or cheered on contestants in a backgammon championship accompanied by live Arabic music.
Backgammon (“shesh-besh” in this part of the world) is thousands of years old and remains a popular pastime among Arabs and Jews.
In Jerusalem, a surprising number of them are playing the board game together since the spring 2016 launch of Jerusalem Double, a project of the nonprofit organization Kulna Yerushalayim (We Are All Jerusalem).
“Backgammon is played throughout the Middle East, so we have this game in common. It’s fun, down to earth, accessible and inclusive,” relates Zaki Djemal, one of the founders of Jerusalem Double along with Dror Amedi, Mahmoud Schade, Hiday Goldsmith, Kamel Jabarin, Mahmoud Jamal Al-Rifai, Matan Hayat, Noa Tal-El and Shir Hoory. Read More
(Photo: Shutterstock.com)
By Viva Sarah Press - February 26, 2017
Originally appeared here in Israel21c
Israel-based international humanitarian aid group, iAID, has announced that it will be providing solar panels to a Yazidi refugee camp in northern Iraq to help 330 families access electricity.
“Persecuted Yazidi families living in horrible conditions in remote regions on the mountains of northern Iraq will receive [solar panels] which will be used to help provide lights in over 330 family tents and in bathroom and shower structures so to prevent gender-based violence,” Shachar Zahavi, founder of iAID, said in a statement. Read More
By Itamar Eichner - February 25, 2017
Originally appeared here in Ynetnews
A worldwide effort has saved the life of a two-year-old Afghan toddler named Yakub, who was secretly brought to Israel after suffering from a heart defect from birth. The child was rushed to an operating room immediately upon landing at Ben Gurion Airport, where doctors saved his life.
Yakub was born in a remote village in Baghlan, where soon after his birth, his parents noticed the child did not eat, cried often and did not grow and develop like other children.
After seeking out doctor after doctor, a family friend put the parents in touch with a man named Farhad, who dedicated his life to helping sick children in Afghanistan.
Farhad made contact with the organization Save A Child's Heart (SACH), based out of Wolfson Medical Center, where doctors analyzed Yakub's tests and decided to operate in an attempt to save his life. Read More
(photo: Israel Police)
By Eliyahu Kamisher - February 7, 2017
Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post
Police met with a representative of the Christian community in Israel on Tuesday to discuss enlisting more Christian recruits into the Israeli police force.
The meeting at National Police Headquarters in Jerusalem was held between attorney Nader Safari, a leader of the Christian community, and the head of the police’s manpower division, Asst.- Ch. Gila Gaziel. Both sides agreed to hold more meetings and develop a framework for police to visit schools in Christian communities to promote careers in the force.
There are currently 423 Christian police officers in Israel and 66 Christians doing their national service with the police and Border Police.
Zionist Union MK Eitan Broshi, who initiated the meeting, praised it as a step in diversifying police ranks.
“I see great importance in recruiting members of the Christian community,” he said in a statement. “This is another layer of full integration into Israeli society, and I thank the Israel Police for their cooperation, and I am pleased with this step.” Read More
(Photo: Nicolas Economou/Shutterstock)
By Abigail Klein Leichman - February 12, 2017
Originally appeared here in Israel21c
Educators and counselors from Jewish Israeli youth movement Hashomer Hatzair and the Arab Israeli youth movement Ajyal soon will embark on a joint voluntary mission to set up a community center and school for Syrian refugee children on the Greek island of Lesbos.
The first delegation of two from each movement, plus coordinator Yair Leibel from Hashomer Hatzair, expects to leave Israel February 19 and stay for three weeks. The second delegation will be accompanied by Rnin Kahil, the Ajyal coordinator.
Members and leaders of the two youth movements have been meeting periodically for almost a decade, usually for informal dialogues.
“The problem is that after we sit and talk, we go our separate ways,” Leibel tells ISRAEL21c. “In one of our last meetings the Syrian situation arose … and there was the thought to do something together to help people who are suffering in a nation in our area, even though Syria is considered an enemy country to Israel.” Read More
(photo: Nave Antopolsky/iAID)
By Dov Lieber - January 25, 2017
Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel
The scale of destruction and death caused by the Syrian civil war has struck an old, dark chord in the hearts of many Israelis. For more than half a decade, a war has raged just across the border from the Jewish state, reportedly claiming the lives of nearly half a million souls and driving millions more from their homes.
The Israeli government has declared itself neutral in the complex conflict, careful not to get sucked into the violent whirlwind threatening the whole region. But Israel has not avoided the gravitational pull of the massive humanitarian catastrophe at its own doorstep.
Israel and its northern neighbor have formally been at war for seven decades. But following the outbreak of the civil war, the Jewish state has been treating Syrian casualties, including wounded fighters. More than 2,000 Syrians have been treated in Israeli hospitals since 2013, according to the Israeli army. Still, Israeli civilians, who are forbidden to enter Syria both under Israeli and Syrian law, have had little ability to act on any sympathy they may feel for the war-struck nation.
But two recent Israeli civilian initiatives, driven by the oath of “never again” — understood by Jews worldwide as a moral imperative to prevent any genocide after the Holocaust — are giving everyday Israelis a chance to help. Read More
(Photo: Gili Yaari/FLASH90)
By Abigail Klein Leichman - January 29, 2017
Originally appeared here on Israel21c
Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has approved a plan to absorb approximately 100 orphaned Syrian children who have survived the fighting in their war-torn country and are in desperate need of warm homes to provide care and rehabilitation.
Despite the fact that Israel and Syria have no diplomatic relations, Deri authorized the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority last week to begin contacting relevant agencies to facilitate the absorption of children who have survived the fighting. They are to be integrated into Arab-Israeli families.
“The situation in Syria is very harsh. Civilians have been slaughtered for years only a few dozen kilometers from Israel,” said Deri. “I have decided to order professionals in my ministry to work toward absorbing children on humanitarian grounds in order to render assistance and rescue 100 of them from the horrors and afford them good and normal lives in Israel.” Read More
(Photo: Yair Sagi)
By Itay Ilnai - January 6, 2017
Originally appeared here in Ynetnews
It was an emotionally charged moment: A young German woman, the granddaughter of a Nazi officer, sitting next to a Holocaust survivor and specifying what her grandfather had done to Jews during World War II. There was no anger there, just a lot of sadness.
“Both sides of my family, my paternal side and my maternal side, were devout Nazis,” Anna Reiner confesses with a serious look on her angel face. “My great grandfather took part in burning the synagogue in the city of Darmstadt, Germany. Another grandfather was a policeman in the Krakow ghetto. Another grandfather was in the Wehrmacht, the German army, and took part in the occupation of Belarus.”
While 25-year-old Reiner describes the horrible acts committed by her grandparents, Yevgenya Chaika sits next to her and strokes her arm, calming her down. It’s quite possible that Chaika, a Belarus-born Holocaust survivor, ran into Reiner’s grandfather at some point. She was only eight months old when Hitler’s soldiers stormed eastern Belarus and jailed all the Jews in crowded ghettos. Together with her family members, she was tossed “like a sack of potatoes” into a crate on a large truck, which took her to the ghetto. She barely survived there for four years, a helpless baby. After the ghetto was liberated, the family returned home, only to discover that the house had been bombed and robbed. Read More
By Jon Wertheim - January 12, 2017
Originally appeared here in Sports Illustrated
Much as Middle East politics cleave public opinion, maybe everyone can agree on this: For a spit of land roughly the size—and population—of New Jersey, Israel plays a wildly outsized role in the theater of geopolitics. Last month the U.S. abstained from a United Nations resolution condemning Israel for the construction of settlements in disputed territory. This bit of inaction triggered multiple international news cycles, an explanatory speech by Secretary of State John Kerry, a blistering rebuttal from the U.K. and, inevitably, a pointed tweet from the President-elect.
Amid all this meshuggaas, the most famous power forward in all the land remained camped out on the perimeter, as it were. Amar’e Stoudemire lives a few blocks from the prime minister’s residence and a 25-minute walk from Jerusalem’s Old City—where so many raw nerves are exposed—but, as he says in his impossibly deep voice, “the politics aren’t for me.”
Otherwise, though, Stoudemire is thoroughly engrossed in what he calls his “adopted homeland,” maybe the most unlikely celebrity resident in Israel’s 69-year history. To some fanfare and more bemusement, Stoudemire announced last summer that he would be leaving the NBA, his workplace since 2002, to close out his gilded career in Israel, where he’d long felt a spiritual connection. Read More
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
(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
