On International Women’s Day, Yad Vashem launches two female-focused exhibits

(Photo: Yad Vashem)

By Tracy Frydberg - March 8, 2018 

Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel

In two new Yad Vashem online exhibits, Jewish women in the Holocaust are portrayed in terms of the horrors they experienced — and their courageous responses.

Out in time for the March 8 International Women’s Day, the exhibits uniquely frame Holocaust remembrance through gender.

The first exhibition, “Spots of Light: Women in the Holocaust,” highlights stories of women before, during and after the Holocaust. A collection of individual and communal stories are divided into subjects such as motherhood, love, friendship and faith. They are tied together through testimony from survivors and archival photos and objects.

The second exhibit is a collection of photographed items which had belonged to Jewish women, often used in the Holocaust.

Clicking on each photo leads you to the story behind the object: the rouge used by survivors Rosa Sperling and her daughter Marila (Miriam) to pass the selections in the camps each day, or the cloth case where survivor Hilde Grünbaum kept the sheet music of the Auschwitz women’s orchestra.

Through these photos, the stories of survival and resilience come alive for the online viewer. Read More

Middle East martial arts masters hit the mat for amity

 (Photo: Urvashi Verma/Times of Israel)

By Urvashi Verma - March 4, 2018

Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel 

What do an instructor from Iran who chose the path of peace, a Jordanian who trained in martial arts with the royal family in Dubai, an Egyptian who serves in the karate federation in Iraq, and a Turkish man who promoted karate for women in his country have in common?

They were all participants in the Budo for Peace International Martial Arts Seminar that took place in Raanana last month, marking the fourth anniversary of a gathering of leading athletes who are using the martial arts to promote coexistence, respect, and peace. They hailed from the Middle East, Japan, Australia, and Greece.

The visiting sensei, or masters, conveyed a strong and united message that the trek was not politically motivated in any way but instead a call to promote values of peace among the youth.

“Our purpose is to teach younger generations to know peace better, not by violent means but by doing martial arts and showing the values of respect to one another — most importantly not to hurt one another,” said Mikdat Kahraman, a master martial arts teacher from Ankara, Turkey. Read More

Textile company creates jobs for unemployed Bedouin women

(Photo: Iota) 

By Rebecca Stadlen Amir - February 26, 2018

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

Some of the best projects are born out of a desire for change – at least that was the case with Iota, an Israel-based textile company empowering unemployed women through the art of crochet.

Each one of the company’s rugs, pillows and home accessories is hand-crocheted by Bedouin women from their own homes, providing them with meaningful work and an independent source of income.

Bedouins are an Arab Israeli subgroup, mainly in the south, with their own distinct culture and social norms. Historically, Bedouins lived a nomadic lifestyle, and many still herd livestock. The women traditionally tend to the house and children, resulting in high unemployment and poverty. A 2015 survey showed the employment rate among Bedouin women was just 22 percent, compared to 32% for all Arab women.

Founded by Shula Mozes, an active social entrepreneur for more than 16 years, Iota aims to support the many women, all over the world, who are unable to work outside of the home due to cultural, religious and geographical reasons. Read More

Israeli, Palestinian Students Reach Elusive Peace Deal

(Photo: Ifat Golan)

By Lidar Grave-Lazi - February 26, 2018

Originally appeared here in The Jerusalem Post

Students at the Eastern Mediterranean International Boarding School (EMIS) have achieved what senior global diplomats have repeatedly failed to accomplish: a peace agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

More than 70 Israeli and Palestinian 11th graders, together with students from 17 countries at EMIS, reached the peace agreement last week in a 24-hour simulation of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The peace-talks simulation was the culmination of a course in peace mediation and conflict resolution that the students have taken over the past few months. It was hosted by the Leon Charney Resolution Center, which is located on the school’s campus.

“This program creates a platform for the students to experience the process of peace-making, to give them the tools of understanding and negotiating. It is an opportunity to empower themselves, to make a difference in their own lives, wherever their lives take them in the future,” said Tzili Charney, wife of the late Leon Charney and the founder of the center.

EMIS is an international high school program that was established in 2014 in Hakfar-Hayarok on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. The school fosters international and intercultural understanding and promotes personal and social leadership through a shared two-year pre-university education and boarding experience. Read More

In find of biblical proportions, seal of Prophet Isaiah said found in Jerusalem

(Photo: Ouria Tadmor/© Eilat Mazar)

By Amanda Borschel-Dan - February 22, 2018

Originally appeared here in The Times of Israel 

The hand of the Prophet Isaiah himself may have created an 8th century BCE seal impression discovered in First Temple remains near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, according to Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar.

“We appear to have discovered a seal impression, which may have belonged to the prophet Isaiah, in a scientific, archaeological excavation,” said Mazar this week in a press release announcing the breathtaking discovery.

Mazar’s team uncovered the minuscule bulla, or seal impression, during renewed excavations at the Ophel, located at the foot of the southern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The discovery was published on Wednesday in an article, “Is This the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature?” as part of a massive March-June issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review dedicated to its recently retired founding editor, Hershel Shanks.

The clay impression is inscribed with letters and what appears to be a grazing doe, “a motif of blessing and protection found in Judah, particularly in Jerusalem,” according to the BAR article. Read More

Israeli Wheelchairs of Hope donated in South Africa

By Abigail Klein Leichman - February 22, 2018

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

Fifty colorful, lightweight child-sized wheelchairs from Israeli nonprofit organization Wheelchairs of Hope are being distributed to needy disabled five- to nine-year-olds in South Africa through the South African chapter of WIZO (Women’s International Zionist Organization) and the Israeli Embassy in South Africa.

The inexpensive, low-maintenance wheelchairs were conceptualized by Israeli couple Pablo Kaplan and Chava Rotshtein as a humanitarian mission to help children with disabilities in developing countries. The chairs were developed with the aid of professionals at ALYN Hospital in Jerusalem, a pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation center. Read More

Ethiopian-Israeli coach Dego a deserving Premier League pioneer

(Photo: Udi Zitiat)

By Allon Sinai - February 21, 2018

Originally appeared here in the Jerusalem Post

With his 32nd birthday being celebrated only six days ago, Hapoel Ashkelon’s Messay Dego is the youngest coach in Israeli soccer’s Premier League.

He also holds another distinction, one that in a perfect world would go unnoticed. In our flawed reality though, it would be naïve to ignore the fact that Dego became the first Ethiopian-Israeli coach to guide a team in the top flight this past Sunday.

Not only is that an overdue and noteworthy accomplishment, but also one that has the potential of making a real impact on people’s lives.

Dego is a pioneer and, despite only being at the beginning of his coaching journey, is already an inspiration to so many who share his heritage and skin color, and have had to overcome similar stereotypes.

It wasn’t that long ago that Dego was pulling 10-hour shifts as a cleaning inspector for the Bat Yam Municipality to allow himself to work as a coach at Hapoel Tel Aviv’s youth department later in the day.

Dego, who was born in Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa and moved to Israel with his family in 1990, would get up at the crack of dawn to ensure the city’s schools were clean ahead of the arrival of the pupils. He worked at the job for two years, with his playing career coming to an end at the age of 27 due to injuries. Read More

Ethiopia adopts Israeli health-ed plan to fight snail fever

By Brian Blum - February 18, 2018

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

More than 80 percent of schoolchildren in the Bench Maji zone of southwest Ethiopia are affected by schistosomiasis, commonly known as “snail fever.” The disease is caused by parasitic flatworms and can infect the urinary tract and intestines.

Schistosomiasis is treatable with medication and changes in infrastructure and behavior, such as the availability and use of clean water and toilets. Getting that combination into rural Ethiopia has been a decade-long challenge for the NALA Foundation.

This week, NALA, which was founded by renowned Israeli immunologist Dr. Zvi Bentwich, signed a three-year partnership with pharmaceutical giant Merck, which has donated more than 19 million praziquantel tablets in Ethiopia since 2007, helping some seven million children to fight the disease. Read More

Film zooms in on 8-year-old amputee from Gaza living in an Israeli hospital

(Photo: Rina Castelnuovo)

By Jessica Steinberg - February 15, 2018 

Originally appeared here in The Times of Israel 

In a documentary now making the rounds of film festivals, an Israeli photojournalist trained her lens on a small Gazan child whose remarkably paradoxical existence reflects the complicated mix of humanitarianism, hatred and bureaucracy that governs relations between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Rina Castelnuovo, who spent 24 years as a New York Times photographer in Israel, devoted four years to closely documenting Muhammed El-Farrah, known as Muhi, an 8-year-old Palestinian boy from Gaza who has spent most of his life in limbo at Tel Aviv’s Tel Hashomer hospital.

The result of that closeup lens is “Muhi — Generally Temporary,” a documentary film in Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles that she co-directed with Tamir Elterman focusing on the quirky, funny semi-permanent resident of Tel Hashomer, along with his grandfather and caretaker, Hamuda Abu Naim El Farrah.

It is a troubling, even devastating film, yet it offers hope in the figure of Muhi, who perseveres despite the amputation of his hands and feet. He scrambles around the hospital with his prosthetic limbs, and holes up with his grandfather in the hospital room that became his home. Read More

Where a Druze Beekeeper, A Jewish Hotel Owner and a Bedouin Mother Talk Shop

(Photo: Wikipedia)

By Diana Bletter - February 7, 2018

Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel 

At a class at Akko Center of Arts and Technology, ACAT, in Akko, Western Galilee, the other evening, I saw the inspiration of the Start-up Nation trickle down to a grassroots level. There were fifteen students, including a Druze beekeeper, a Bedouin mother and daughter who serve homemade meals in their home, and a Jewish woman who operates luxury guest cabins in a small town on the northern border with Lebanon. Studying Entrepreneurship in the Travel Industry, the students were trying to figure out how to reach more customers, use social media, and expand their start-up tourism businesses.

The three-month course is part of the youth and adult learning programs at ACAT. Directed by CEO Naim Obeid, born and raised in Akko, the non-profit art, education and job-training center is under the auspices of Manchester Bidwell Corporation of the United States.

The Corporation, which runs ten centers in the United States, opened its first center outside of the USA in Akko in November 2016. Read More

Ethiopian Israeli teen wins X Factor Israel after wowing with audition

By Rosa Doherty - February 7, 2018

Originally appeared here in theJC.com 

An Ethiopian teenager, who wowed audiences with her version of Demi Lovato’s “Stone Cold,” has won X-Factor Israel.

Eden Alene, 17, from Jerusalem, overcame a difficult childhood to enter the competition and win a recording contract.

The singer’s parents divorced when she was two and she was brought up by her single, Orthodox Jewish mother.

During the competition she talked about being ashamed of her origins, but as she grew up, she said she became proud to be Ethiopian.

A video of Alene’s audition went viral in October.

As part of the performance the aspiring singer explained why promoting coexistence was important to her. Read More

How a Saudi publisher is helping Israel speak to the Arab world

By Dov Lieber - February 9, 2018

Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel 

Over the past year, the Arabic-language news site Elaph has published an unprecedented series of interviews with senior Israeli officials. The interviewees included the Israeli army’s chief of staff, the previous defense minister, the intelligence minister and the leader of the opposition.

Stoking interest was Elaph’s connections to Saudi Arabia, with many asking whether the interviews are a sign of warming ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh.

The Times of Israel sat down recently with Majdi Halabi, a veteran Israeli reporter who conducted and then wrote up the interviews in a simple question and answer format.

Halabi, 54, who grew up in the Galilean Druze village Daliyat al-Karmel, said the interviews were his idea, and that Elaph’s publisher, Othman Al Omeir, “loved” the initiative.

This was no secret understanding between Riyadh and Jerusalem, said Halabi, but merely a successful story pitch in Elaph’s offices in London.

The idea was simple, Halabi said. “We are a paper that is published in London. We are not subject to the laws of Arab countries, where, except for Egypt and Jordan [which have peace treaties with Israel], it is illegal for journalists to interview official Israeli sources.”

Halabi said that readers of Arabic-language news have always read statements from Israeli leaders through second-hand sources that raise doubts about the authenticity or accuracy of the quotes. Read More

Can barn owls fly a path to peace in the Middle East?

(Photo: Abigail Klein Leichman)

By Brian Blum - February 8, 2018

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

 The path to peace in the Middle East might be navigated not via a dove carrying an olive branch but by a lowly barn owl.

Barn owls have been used in Israel since 1982 as an alternative to toxic chemicals for killing voles, which at the time plagued Israeli agricultural fields. The preferred chemical against rodents – known as compound 1080 – had been banned a decade earlier in the United States, although not in Israel.

Ornithologist Yossi Leshem thought that owls might be able to control the rodents more naturally.

Leshem set up an experiment at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in 1983. Three decades later, the barn owl approach has spread throughout the Palestinian territories and into Jordan as well.

“Birds have the power to bring people together, because they know no boundaries,” says Leshem, who teaches at Tel Aviv University.

That’s in part how 22 participants from 10 countries (including Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Cyprus, Greece, France and Switzerland in addition to Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan) came together in January to share research from their barn owl vs. rodent experiences.

The group met at the Crowne Plaza resort hotel on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea where they discussed scientific findings and hatch plans. Read More

Writing Program Empowers Israeli, Palestinian Youth

By Selah Maya Zighelboim - January 31, 2018

Originally appeared here in jewishexponent.com

When President Donald Trump announced plans to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, individuals from across the political spectrum voiced their opinions.

One voice missing, though, said Robert Vogel, professor emeritus at La Salle University, was that of young teenagers impacted by the conflict. So he reached out to the Israeli Jewish, Israeli Arab and Palestinian students in his program, Writers Matter, to collect their thoughts.

“I don’t understand why it is a big deal that Trump says Jerusalem is the capital of Israel — it always has been. I just think that if he were really a leader he would know what we all learned in the kindergarten — it’s best to share,” a 13-year-old Jewish Israeli girl wrote.

“I will not keep my hands tied … but I struggle with all of what I have, I feel a revolution inside me that arrests my heart, so much sadness clouds me resulted from this occupation that steals from us all good and precious things,” a 13-year-old Palestinian girl wrote.

Writers Matter, which operates out of the University of Pennsylvania, has 250 students participating in eight schools in Israel and the West Bank. The program encourages 12- to 14-year-olds to express themselves through writing.

“The important thing is not for the readers who want to read this to take a side, it’s to take a step back and listen to these young kids and what they’re thinking about,” Vogel said. “These are the young kids who are going to grow up and hopefully make some changes down the line.”

The Israeli program is based on a Philadelphia program of the same name. While the Philadelphia one seeks to empower students in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, the focus of the Israeli program is to empower students whose entire lives have existed in the context of political conflict.

In the program, the young teens write about themselves, their families, their challenges, how they live their lives, their aspirations, their dreams and their fears. Occasionally, they do other assignments as well, such as responses to the moving of the embassy, or the 2015-16 knife attacks in Israel. Sometimes, specific teachers will have their students write about other topics in addition, such as religion or the environment. Read More

Israelis, Christians Work Together to Bring Medical Attention, Love to Syrians

By Julie Stahl - February 1, 2018

Originally appeared here in CBN.com

One Christian ministry is partnering with Israel to provide food, medical help and other assistance year round to Syrians caught in the ravages of civil war.
 
It's called Camp Ichay – a Christian medical clinic operating inside the Israeli border under the protection of the Israel Defense Forces. It provides urgent medical care to Syrians caught in the middle of a devastating six-year war.

About 80,000 Syrians, many of whom need medical help, live in this area. They arrive by truck at the border where they come through a gate to be checked for security. After that they enter Camp Ichay where they receive medical attention and love.
 
"From the time they come through the gate they become the most important person in the world, and we don't speak the language so we have to speak the language of love," Don Tipton told CBN News.
 
Don and Sondra Tipton started Friend Ships, a Christian aid organization working with Israel's Good Neighbor Project to help the Syrians. Read More

Muslim woman is ‘powerhouse of lifesaving’ as Israeli EMT

(Photo: United Hatzalah)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - January 21, 2018

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

On a recent Wednesday morning, volunteer emergency medical technician Sanaa Mahameed was the first responder on the scene as fire and rescue personnel extricated two injured people from their vehicles following a car crash.

Unfortunately, motor vehicle accidents aren’t a rare occurrence. What was unusual about this scene is that the woman tending the wounded was a religious Muslim who modestly covers her hair and neck with a hijab.

Sanaa Mahameed holds the distinction of being the first female Muslim volunteer EMT in the United Hatzalah of Israel voluntary first-responder network, whose total volunteer force of 4,000 includes about 320 Muslims and 330 women.

United Hatzalah international spokesman Raphael Poch describes Mahameed as one of the most active volunteers in Umm al-Fahm, an Arab town in the Haifa district. Read More

Gazan teenager saved by kidney transplant in Israel

(Photo: RMC)

By Rebecca Stadlen Amir - January 11, 2018

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

A 13-year-old boy from the Gaza Strip received a lifesaving kidney donation from his brother, an undergraduate student in Algeria, in an operation performed at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.

The result: a functional kidney, a reunion between family members, and proof that conflict doesn’t penetrate hospital doors.

It wasn’t the first time the boy, K., had traveled to Israel for treatment. He was born with a hereditary kidney defect, leading to hospitalizations and surgeries at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sheba Medical Center in central Israel.

His condition worsened in recent years. When he reached Rambam in May 2017, his kidney function was estimated at less than 20 percent.

The dilemma for his mother, a resident of Gaza and mother of six, was whether to start dialysis or to seek out a kidney donation from a relative. After compatibility tests for her and the boy’s 24-year-old brother, also from Gaza, were deemed unsuitable, they needed to look elsewhere for a lifesaving solution. Read More

South African Zulu King Invokes Fight Against AIDS, Drought, in Plea to ANC Government to Retain Close Israel Ties

(Photo: JN / JDP / Reuters)

By Algemeiner Staff - January 11, 2018

Originally appeared here in the Algemeiner

The king of South Africa’s Zulu nation has urged the country’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) to retain close ties with Israel, following last month’s vote by the ANC at its national conference to downgrade the South African Embassy in Tel Aviv to a “liaison office.”

King Goodwill Zwelithinii — the constitutionally-recognized monarch of the 12 million Zulus who make up South Africa’s largest ethnic group — told a delegation of the ANC’s senior leadership that he had developed a close relationship with Israel and the South African Jewish community since his 2009 decree introducing medical circumcision for boys in a bid to halt the spread of the AIDS virus.

According to the World Health Organization, there is “compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%.” More than 700,000 males have been circumcised since the decree was issued by the king.

“There are two clinics that have been built by Jewish organizations in this kingdom,” the king told the ANC delegation, whose members included the new party president, Cyril Ramaphosa, at last week’s meeting.

“They came here because I requested them to come,” the king said. “They (the South African Zionist Federation and South African Friends of Israel) built these clinics the day I announced circumcision on December 6, 2009.” The two clinics, in Mathubathuba and Emondlo, provide HIV-related health services and education for the surrounding communities. Read More

Israeli surgeon enables Palestinian teen to stand again

By Brian Blum - January 9, 2018

Originally appeared here in Israel21c 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict doesn’t enter into Israeli hospitals, where patients are treated equally, regardless of citizenship, religion or ethnicity.

That’s how Yusef Rabaya, a 19-year-old from Jenin, located in the Palestinian Authority territories, received a revolutionary treatment in Israel that has transformed his life and got him walking again for the first time in nearly a year.

Rabaya was born with cerebral palsy and a neuromuscular kyphosis – a curve from the front to the back of his body that looks like a hump.

When Rabaya hit his teens, the curve became so pronounced that he could no longer stand and was in terrible pain. His parents searched for a cure in Europe, to no avail.

Finally, the family made a connection in Boston where surgery was performed to implant rods into his back to strengthen his spine. But the rods broke and Rabaya was now confined to bed in even worse pain.

The solution to Rabaya’s misery turned out to be not in Europe or Boston, but right here in Israel. Read More

Israeli tech powers major wave-energy station in Ghana

(Photo: Shutterstock.com)

By Rebecca Stadlen Amir - January 8, 2018

Originally appeared here in Israel21c

Israel’s Yam Pro Energy  signed a partnership with Indian business conglomerate Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group to begin production on the world’s first commercial-scale wave energy power station in Ghana.

The $180 million station, located along the coastline near the capital city of Accra, will be designed to generate up to 150 megawatts.

“We are very excited today reaching such a substantial milestone as one of the largest EPC [engineering, procurement, construction] companies in the world is giving confidence in our technology and company and are willing to start a cooperation in Ghana,” Yam Pro’s joint CEOs, Zeev Peretz and Laser Rothshtein, said in a statement. “We are hoping this will be a start of a global cooperation with SP that we can together revolutionize the energy market around the world.” Read More