Attacks on Israel: Not just from Gaza

By Josh Ahrens - May 8, 2019

This has been an extremely difficult week for Israel as the terror organization Hamas has launched seven hundred deadly rockets from Gaza into Israeli communities.

Most in the international community and mainstream media have chosen to do what they do every time Hamas attacks Israel. They take the opportunity, not to call on Hamas to stop firing rockets at innocent civilians, but to report on the conflict in a way that demonizes Israel for responding to these acts of terror.

After Hamas relentlessly bombed Israeli communities, this is how Sky News chose to report on that... "5 Dead in Gaza amid Failed Israel Ceasefire Talks." They left out Hamas, and the Israelis Hamas has killed. I would suggest wording it like this... "Oppressive Terror Organization Hamas Breaks Ceasefire with Israel, Renews Rocket Attacks, Causing Deaths on Both Sides."

Words matter.

Adding fuel to the fire, the New York Times chose to publish this antisemitic cartoon (which looks lifted straight out of 1940’s Nazi propaganda.)

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader (!!) of the British Labor Party, recently did the same, endorsing a book which repeats Nazi tropes about Jews controlling the media.

Indifference to such careless words has helped spread the agenda of Hamas to nearly every area of life in the West. French Jews are leaving France in record numbers because of antisemitic attacks. American university campuses continue to perpetuate incidents against Jews, rising in frequency year after year. Canada has seen its third straight year of record-breaking antisemitic attacks. It's the same story in Sweden. In this article written by IC alum Jeff Walton, we see the Presbyterian Church (USA) continue to unfairly malign Israel.

Could we have imagined this list of events ten years ago? Will we rise to the challenge and share the truth and beauty of Israel with those in the audiences God has trusted us with? Will we be counted among those who saw the warning signs early and spoke up? Are we willing, as Jesus followers first and foremost, to pay a cost if necessary?

There is a correlation between these cartoons, the biased news reporting, and the false teaching pervading some Christian denominations: It all leads to violence (or tolerance of that violence) against Jews.

You, the Israel Collective, leaders of the next generation, are the key. We must educate our audiences on what antisemitism is, and how to respond to it with love, courage, and truth.

Israelis reach out to southerners under rocket attack

(Photo: Noam Rivkin Fenton/Flash90)

By Naama Barak - May 6, 2019

A ceasefire hopefully marking the end of the latest round of violence on the Gaza border came into effect on Monday morning, giving relief to Israelis under attack from hundreds of rockets launched into the south of the country over the weekend.

While schools in the south are now open again allowing 210,000 affected children to go back into the classroom, and people are gradually going back to their regular routines, the weekend saw many residents stuck in safe rooms or trying to find respite farther from the border as a barrage of 690 missiles hit southern Israel killing four people, injuring hundreds, and destroying many properties.

Read More: Israel21c

Israeli invents device that can test pesticide residues on food in real time

By Abigail Klein Leichman - April 24, 2019

Avner Avidan watched in horror as a TV news exposé revealed the alarming amount of invisible pesticide residues on supermarket fruits and vegetables. According to World Health Organization estimates, a variety of food contaminants sickened one of every 10 people during 2018.

“There is something wrong with this picture,” says Avidan, an Israeli who is passionate about plant-based eating and fitness.

“For me, the understanding that I can still cause significant damage to my body with these contaminants even if I try to be healthy and most of my diet is comprised of fruit, vegetables and soy, was shocking. I thought it required a different solution.”

Hoping to develop an accurate handheld device for shoppers to check produce for pesticide residue, Avidan put in six months of research and concluded this couldn’t yet be done reliably on the consumer level.

But he did discover that on a larger scale, food manufacturers, farmers and retailers were seeking faster, cheaper, and more reliable solutions to comply with government regulations requiring that their products do not exceed maximum residue limits (MRLs) for chemical contaminants including pesticides.

Read More: Israel21c

A Jew, a Muslim and a Christian walk into a classroom

By Naama Barak - April 22, 2019

A Jew, a Muslim and a Christian walk into a classroom. No, this is not the start of a joke, but a most accurate description of a unique course on interreligious dialogue at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.

“The class as a whole is meant as an opportunity for Jewish and Arab students at Bar-Ilan University to get an appreciation of each other’s cultures and see the commonalities in religious traditions as a basis for dialogue,” says course lecturer Ben Mollov.

“They’re gaining the personal perspective of each other and that leads to a type of relationship building and relationship transformation.”

Mollov, a lecturer in political science and conflict management at Bar-Ilan, has been involved in Arab-Jewish dialogue from a religious perspective for the past 20-odd years. And while he’s a veteran enthusiast of this sort of dialogue, the current course emerged as an initiative of his students.

Read More: Israel21c

Israeli scientists unveil world’s first 3D-printed heart with human tissue

(Photo: JACK GUEZ / AFP)

By Delphine Matthieussent - April 15, 2019

AFP — Scientists in Israel unveiled a 3D print of a heart with human tissue and vessels on Monday, calling it a first and a “major medical breakthrough” that advances possibilities for transplants.

While it remains a far way off, scientists hope one day to be able to produce hearts suitable for transplant into humans as well as patches to regenerate defective hearts.

The heart produced by researchers at Tel Aviv University is about the size of a rabbit’s.

Read More: Times of Israel

Israel's EarlySense Tech Chosen To Help Combat Infant Mortality In Kenya

By Noam Goldberg - April 1, 2019

According to USAID, Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s highest newborn death rate of 34 per 1,000 births. In 2017, UNICEF estimated 1.04 million neonatal deaths in the region, accounting for nearly a fifth of under-five deaths globally.

In an effort to combat the region’s extreme infant mortality rates, Israeli medical technology company, EarlySense, is deploying its market-leading patient monitoring platform in Nairobi, Kenya.

EarlySense was selected by international nonprofit, Save The Children, to monitor newborns’ vital signs as part of a pilot project supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company’s contact-free, piezoelectric sensors will be used to measure infants’ respiratory rate, heart rate, and any type of motion, detecting dangers such as rib-cage movement and heart contractions without disturbing or coming into contact with the infant.

Read More: NoCamels

Second Temple-era settlement unearthed in southern Israel

(Photo: Anat Rasiuk/Israel Antiquities Authority)

By Naama Barak - April 8, 2019

Israeli archaeologists unearthed the remains of a Jewish settlement of the Second Temple era in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva, revealing evidence of daily Jewish life and even rebellion.

The site of the settlement, which dates from the 1st century CE to the Bar-Kochva Revolt of 135 CE, was uncovered during excavation ahead of the construction of a new neighborhood. It is the first such settlement to be found in the area, which at the time served as the southern border of the ancient kingdom of Judah.

Read More: Israel21c

Israel just became the seventh nation to orbit the moon

(Photo: Space IL)

By Mike Wall, Space.com - April 4, 2019

Israel just became the seventh nation to orbit the moon.

After slowly spiraling away from Earth for the past six weeks, an Israeli spacecraft known as Beresheet slipped into orbit around the moon on Thursday.

This was a historic achievement for the little robot, but it paves the way for something truly epic: a lunar touchdown attempt a week from now. If Beresheet succeeds on April 11, it will become the first Israeli craft, and the first privately funded vehicle, ever to land on the surface of the moon.

"The lunar capture is an historic event in and of itself — but it also joins Israel in a seven-nation club that has entered the moon’s orbit," Morris Kahn said in a statement. "A week from today, we'll make more history by landing on the moon, joining three superpowers who have done so. Today I am proud to be an Israeli."

Kahn chairs SpaceIL, the nonprofit organization that runs Beresheet's mission along with Israel Aerospace Industries, the nation's largest aerospace and defense contractor.

Read More: NBC News

Rare ancient treasures bearing Biblical names discovered in Jerusalem’s City of David

(Photo: Eliyahu Yanai, City of David)

By James Rogers - April 2, 2019

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered a rare clay seal mark and a 2,600-year-old stone stamp bearing Biblical names amid the ruins of a building destroyed by the ancient Babylonians.

The amazing finds, which date to the First Temple period, were made in Jerusalem’s famous City of David. The artifacts were discovered in the remains of a structure razed in the 6th century B.C., likely during the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., according to experts.

In a statement, Prof. Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority, which oversaw the dig, said charred pottery shards were found in the building, indicating that the seal mark and stamp survived a major fire. Both artifacts feature ancient Hebrew script.

Read More: Fox News

Why Israeli research is such a hot ticket worldwide

(Photo: Shitzu Photographers/Technion Spokesperson’s Office)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - March 31, 2019

Research from Israel is driving awesome advances in medicine, healthcare, water management, autonomous vehicles, consumer products, manufacturing, and – well, you name it.

So it’s only natural that many international academic, corporate and government bodies are signing collaboration agreements with Israeli research universities and hospitals.

Nanotechnology is one of the hot fields of shared interest, for application in everything from cancer drug delivery to finding dark matter in outer space.

Israeli physicist Beena Kalisky from Bar-Ilan University’s Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA) is leading a team of researchers in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden in developing a desktop-sized quantum computer.

BINA recently inked research and cooperation deals with the United Nations International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal; the University of Jyväskylä in Finland; State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemicals, Fibers & Polymer Materials at Donghua University in Shanghai, and Hanyang University in Seoul.

“Israel offers a combination of good research and good conditions for partners, and that attracts entities to us,” says BINA Director Prof. Dror Fixler, also a member of the Bar-Ilan Faculty of Engineering and a new fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE).

Read More: Israel21c

Israeli tech provides drinking water to Sierra Leone kids

(Photo: Drusso/Shtevi Photography)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - March 31, 2019

Water pollution is one of the leading causes of death in the west African country of Sierra Leone, where average life expectancy is just 56 years. Now, St. Joseph School girls in the capital city of Freetown can easily access safe drinking water thanks to Israeli technology in the form of an atmospheric water generator from Watergen.

The GEN-350 can produce up to 900 liters of water per day from the humid air of Africa. The atmospheric moisture is purified through an internal water-treatment system. The unit needs no infrastructure except electricity from the power grid or from a generator.

Watergen President Michael Mirilashvili’s efforts to make fresh, pure water available around the globe earned the company a place on the World Economic Forum’s list of the world’s top technology pioneers in 2018.

Based in Rishon LeTzion, the company was founded in 2009 by entrepreneur Arye Kohavi and maintains two factories in Israel. Miami-based Watergen USA has a factory in South Carolina.

Read More: Israel21c

Rare photo series marks Israel-Egypt peace treaty at 40

(Photo: Dan Hadani - Dan Hadani Archive/National Library of Israel)

By Rachel Neiman - March 26, 2019

March 26, 2019 marks the fourth decade since the signing of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty. It is a bittersweet anniversary. Relations between Israel and Egypt have long been described as a “cold peace” with little person-to-person contact – so different from the euphoria of the early Eighties when Israelis rushed en masse to visit the country that had once been a bitter enemy.

That spirit was perhaps best exemplified by the two leaders at that time, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, who – in addition to sharing the 1978 Nobel Prize for Peace – shared a friendship that extended beyond the confines of formal diplomacy.

In honor of the 40th anniversary, the National Library of Israel has released a series of photographs documenting Begin’s visits to Egypt.

During the negotiations with Egypt and in the years following the signing of the agreement, Begin came to Egypt several times. Betwixt and between the crowded meeting schedule, the Israeli PM managed to tour some of Egypt’s most famous historic sites: the Pyramids of Giza, the Aswan Dam, the temples of Abu Simbel and the tombs of the Pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings.

According to photographer Dan Hadani, who accompanied the Israeli entourage on one visit, “It was impossible to describe the excitement that gripped us when we suddenly saw the pyramids from the plane. To think of the Children of Israel who were slaves in Egypt… it was like a dream.”

Read More: Israel21c

IsraAID sends emergency team to cyclone-swept Mozambique

(Photo: World Food Programme)

By Naama Barak - March 20, 2019

Israeli humanitarian NGO IsraAID is dispatching an emergency response team to Mozambique, after it was hit by the devastating Cyclone Idai, thought to be the worst ever disaster to strike the southern hemisphere, according to the United Nations.

The cyclone, which swept through Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe in southeastern Africa, destroyed everything in its path, leaving homes, crops and infrastructure in ruins, and fears that over 1,000 people will have died in the tragedy.

More than 2.6 million people across the three countries are thought to be affected by the powerful storm. Mozambique’s port city of Beira, the country’s fourth largest, took a direct hit from the cyclone leaving it 90 percent destroyed and almost completely cut off by storm surges of 18 feet.

IsraAID is set to distribute relief supplies, deliver psychological first aid and restore access to safe drinking water to affected communities in Mozambique.

Read More: Israel21c

An exhibit in South Africa recalls the exodus of Ethiopian Jews to Israel

(Photo: Beit Hatfusot/via JTA)

By Moira Schneider - March 16, 2019

CAPE TOWN (JTA) — In 1983, when Danny Abebe was 9 years old, his Jewish family decided one Rosh Hashanah night to leave their remote village in Ethiopia — with some 700 others — due to war and a series of famines that had wracked the country.

“We didn’t know where [we were going], nobody told us,” he recalled. “We walked barefoot to Sudan – we walked 800 kilometers [500 miles], over three weeks, walking 45-55 kilometers a day,” or between 28 and 35 miles.

Abebe didn’t know it then, but he was part of the historic Operation Moses, the secret airlift by the Israeli government of some 7,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel over seven weeks between 1984 and 1985. At the opening of “Operation Moses: 30 Years After,” an exhibition at the South African Jewish Museum that showcases the stories of 10 such individuals — he spoke of the heartbreak faced along the way.

Gavin Morris, director of the South African Jewish Museum, said an important element of the exhibition is that it acknowledges the Jewish presence in Africa over two millennia.

“There’s a tendency to think of Jews in this day and age as white, middle- or upper-class people, where the reality historically has always been very different,” Morris told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“We bring a lot of African schoolchildren through the museum – I’d like them to see that Jews are not homogenously white, Ashkenazi, middle-class people, but that we are a very diverse culture and community and the lived experience of the Ethiopian Jews is much closer to their known experience and is maybe something that would resonate a bit more closely,” said Morris.

Read More: Times of Israel

'A Real Blessing': Archaeologists Unearth Rare 1,700 Year Inscription on Church in Israeli Desert

(Photo: Tali Erickson-Gini, IAA)

By Emily Jones - March 14, 2019

JERUSALEM, Israel – German and Israeli scientists discovered a 1700-year-old stone bearing the name of a city believed to be the possible location of an ancient biblical town.

The Greek inscription refers to the city of Elusa (Halutza in Hebrew) and was discovered during excavations in Halutza National Park in the Negev desert.

"The name of the city of Elusa appears in a number of historical documents and contexts, including the Madaba mosaic map, the Nessana papyri and other historical references. However, this is the first time that the name of the city has been discovered in the site itself. The inscription mentions several Caesars of the tetrarchy which allow to date it around 300 CE," the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday in a press release.

Read More: CBN

App brings ridesharing to women in Arab-Israeli villages

(Photo: Technion Spokesperson's Office)

By Brian Blum - March 12, 2019

One of the most significant barriers to integration of Arab-Israeli women into the job market, as well as greater involvement in the public arena, is transportation. Bus service from Arab villages in the north of Israel is sporadic at best.

Catching a ride with a stranger is also a non-starter. A survey conducted by researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology with 117 women from 10 communities in the northern part of the country found that most participants said that, for personal security concerns, they would only feel comfortable traveling with drivers with whom they are familiar.

To address both these concerns, the Technion’s Transportation Research Institute and Kayan, a feminist nonprofit organization, have developed Safarcon (Arabic for “your travels”), a new ridesharing application built specifically for women in the Arab-Israeli sector. Safarcon has the support of the Office of the Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Transportation.

The Arabic-language Safarcon is free to users; it connects drivers with passengers who need to reach the same destination.

Read More: Israel21c

Israel's first moon mission spacecraft sends back selfie

(Photo: AFP/Getty)

By Agence France-Presse - March 5, 2019

An Israeli spacecraft on its maiden mission to the moon has sent its first selfie back to Earth, mission chiefs said on Tuesday.

The image showing part of the Beresheet spacecraft with Earth in the background was beamed to mission control in Yehud, Israel – 23,360 miles (37,600km) away, the project’s lead partners said.

The partners, NGO SpaceIL and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, launched the unmanned Beresheet – Hebrew for Genesis – from Cape Canaveral in Florida on 22 February.

Read More: The Guardian

Israel’s medical clowns are on a mission to heal the world

By Abigail Klein Leichman - March 3, 2019

Israel Defense Forces medical missions always fly to disaster zones with tons of medical equipment. For David “Dush” Barashi, the most critical piece of equipment is his red nose.

A veteran member of Israel’s Dream Doctors Project, Barashi and fellow medical clowns take the skills they hone daily in Israeli hospitals and apply them at scenes of indescribable despair, death and destruction across the world.

Over the past 16 years, in addition to his day job at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, Barashi has tended patients and/or trained personnel in about 50 hospitals in Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Australia, United States, England, Bulgaria and France.

Read More: Israel21c

Why Forbes chose Israel to host 1st Global Women’s Summit

By Abigail Klein Leichman - February 21, 2019

For Forbes magazine Chief Content Officer Randall Lane, Israel was a natural choice to host the first-ever Forbes Under 30 Global Women’s Summit, set to take place in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem from March 31 to April 4, 2019 with 600 participants from 50 countries.

It’s not only because participants rated last May’s first-ever Under 30 Global Summit in Israel as Forbes’ top event of the year, Lane tells ISRAEL21c.

Israel was chosen also because of its track record in making leadership roles available to women, starting in the military.

Read More: Israel21c

Google Set to Acquire Israeli Cloud Start-Up Alooma

(Photo: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

By Eytan Halon - February 20, 2019

Google intends to acquire Israeli data migration start-up Alooma, the companies announced late on Tuesday, in a deal said to be worth $150 million.

Google said that acquiring the company would be critical for building additional data migration capabilities as it seeks to capture a greater share of the cloud market, which is currently dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

Read More: Jerusalem Post