Greece and Israel set to sign largest-ever defense procurement deal

(Photo Credit: Elbit Systems)

By: JNS - January 5, 2020

Greece has approved Israel’s bid for a 20-year, $1.68 billion defense contract for the establishment of a flight school for the Hellenic Air Force, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced on Monday. The defense procurement agreement, the signing of which now depends on negotiations with the Greek Defense Ministry, will be the largest ever between the two countries.

The agreement is a “long-term partnership” that “reflects the excellent and developing relations we have with Greece,” said Israel Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who added that it would create hundreds of jobs in both countries and “promote stability” in the Mediterranean.

Read More: JNS

Ten Million Christian Zionists Can’t Be Ignored

(Photo: Brendt A. Peterson/Shutterstock)

By Paul Miller - January 5, 2021

Christians United for Israel

Nearly five years ago to the day, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Pastor John Hagee and his dear friend Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg for an exclusive interview about their relationship and Hagee’s organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Scheinberg’s San Antonio synagogue, Congregation Rodfei Sholom, had recently been victimized by a spate of anti-Semitic graffiti including swastikas and references to the Ku Klux Klan spray-painted on the synagogue as well as on homes and cars in the surrounding Jewish neighborhood.

“As soon as I heard this had happened,” recalled Pastor Hagee, “my wife and I came down immediately to express our solidarity with the rabbi, with his congregation and the Jewish community of San Antonio. I want to say to all of the Christians in America, we stand with the Jewish people. An attack against this synagogue is an attack against Christians everywhere. We are united.”

Read More: The American Spectator

IDF deploys new female combat intelligence unit to the northern front

(Photo Credit: IDF Spokesperson)

By: Hannah Greenwood - January 4, 2021

For the first time in Israeli history, female combat intelligence soldiers have been deployed to the country’s northern front—currently, its most volatile. The soldiers are tasked with collecting intelligence via drones.

Approximately two months ago, the military decided to add an all-female unit specializing in drone operations to the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps’ 869th combat intelligence battalion, “Shachaf.”

In doing so, “we double the forces in the sector,” said Lt. Nurit Rokach, commander of the new unit. “No one in the area knows how to use drones, certainly not at our level, so we are considered forces in high demand,” she added.

The drone unit was a game-changer for the sector, confirmed an official in the IDF Northern Command.

Read More: JNS

Caribbean environmental disaster meets Israeli innovation

(Photo Credit: Courtesy)

By: Hagay Hacohen - January 3, 2020

The famous beaches of the Caribbean nations, badly struck in recent years due to the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, which stretches each summer from the Gulf of Mexico to the West Coast of Africa, will enjoy massive improvement thanks to an Israeli innovation.

A type of algae, Sargassum leads to heartbreak for the many tourists who expect to enjoy white beaches and a clear ocean but instead endure the reek and filth of the decomposing seaweed. The reek means the algae has some caloric value, Maof Holdings CEO Ygdal Ach told The Jerusalem Report.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

Israel welcomes 20,000 new immigrants from 70 different countries in 2020

(Photo By: Flash90)

By: i24News - December 28, 2020

Despite the coronavirus pandemic affecting much of the world for the majority of the year, Israel still managed to welcome approximately 20,000 new immigrants in 2020 according to newly released Jewish Agency figures.

The figure represents a 59-percent decrease from 2019, which saw some 34,000 immigrants, the highest annual figure for the past decade.

According to the Jewish Agency, as with last year's immigrants, the newcomers hailed mostly from North America and France.

According to the organization's longer-term forecasts, some 250,000 people will move to Israel in the next three-to-five years.

“Since the beginning of the year, the Jewish Agency has received around 160,000 inquiries about immigration to Israel and has opened about 41,000 new aliyah application cases, including 28,000 cases from Western countries. [We have seen] a 41-percent-increase in the opening of files for young adults aged 18 to 35 from Western countries,” the Jewish Agency explained.

Read More: i24News

Dubai travel rush proves nothing stops Israeli wanderlust

(Photo Courtesy: Flydubai Airlines)

By: Abigail Klein Leichman - December 17, 2020

The first flight carrying Israeli tourists to the United Arab Emirates landed November 8 at Dubai international Airport.

Five weeks later, roughly 50,000 Israelis had been to the UAE, according to Israeli Tourism Minister Orit Farkash Hacohen.

Those numbers will likely skyrocket once visa-free travel goes into effect by January, she remarked at a press conference on December 16.

“Israelis are very adventurous and are the first to go see any new attraction,” she said.

Thousands of Israelis celebrated Hanukkah in the glittering capital city of Dubai this year, as the Abraham Accords opened the UAE to Israeli passport holders for the first time in history.

Read More: Israel21c

Israeli model named world’s ‘most beautiful face’ of 2020

(Photo By: YouTube Screenshot)

By: TOI Staff - December 29, 2020

Nineteen-year-old Israeli model Yael Shelbia has been awarded the top spot on the annual TC Candler “100 Most Beautiful Faces of the Year” list.

As well as topping the rest of the world’s female population, Shelbia also beat out fellow Israeli Gal Gadot, who was named 28th on the list.

“Unlike most other annual beauty rankings,” TC Candler said, “The List is not a popularity contest and is most definitely not country-specific. It is not about the sexiest body or the most famous celebrity. Rather, the list attempts to inform & broaden public opinion instead of reflecting it. You will find superstars and new stars, global sensations and relative unknowns.”

Read More: Times of Israel

Israeli hydrogen startup wins Shell energy competition

(Photo Courtesy: H2Pro)

By: Brian Blum - December 27, 2020

Hydrogen is an ideal “green” replacement for fossil fuels. When hydrogen is burned or converted into electricity using a fuel cell, the only byproduct is water; there are no harmful CO2 emissions. Moreover, one kilogram of hydrogen packs as much energy as a gallon (3.8 liters) of gasoline.

Unfortunately, although hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements on earth, almost all hydrogen is “locked up” in molecules, mainly as water and other organic compounds. The most common way to extract hydrogen is from natural gas, but the process releases large amounts of carbon dioxide. A less polluting approach is to split water into oxygen and hydrogen using electrolysis, but this method isn’t energy efficient.

Israeli startup H2Pro has a better idea, and Royal Dutch Shell named it the “best company in the scale-up track” in its New Energy Challenge competition.

Read More: Israel21c

‘A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed’: Israel Offers Aid to Croatia After Major Earthquake

(Photo By: Slavko Midzor/Pixsell via Reuthers)

By: Algemeiner Staff - December 29, 2020

Israel has offered humanitarian aid to Croatia following a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck the European nation on Tuesday.

The tremor — with the epicenter in Petrinja, 50 kilometers south of the Croatian capital, Zagreb — killed at least six people and injured more than 20 more.

It was the second quake to strike the area in two days.

The director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Alon Ushpiz, tweeted, “We follow with great concern the effects of the recent earthquakes in Croatia, that caused great damage and the tragic death of a young girl.”

“The Foreign Ministry, in coordination with the home front command, has offered immediate assistance to Croatia,” he added.

Read More: Algemeiner

New drip irrigation for rice can cut water use by 70%

(Photo By: Sergio Capuzzimati/Unsplash)

By: Brian Blum - December 28, 2020

Netafim is one of Israel’s best-known success stories. The company was started in 1965 and became the world leader in drip irrigation systems, especially for arid farmlands.

Now Netafim is now debuting a system for rice, the staple food of more than half the world’s population.

Rice is traditionally grown by flooding paddies with water. Cultivating rice uses up to 40 percent of the world’s freshwater and is responsible for 10% of manmade emissions of the greenhouse gas methane, according to the UN-backed Sustainable Rice Platform.

Netafim’s precision drip system for rice paddies reduces water usage by 70% (from 5,000 cubic meters of water per ton of rice to 1,500 cubic meters) and diminishes methane emissions to almost zero.

Read More: Israel21c

Tel Aviv research: 99.9% of COVID-19 virus dead in 30 seconds with UV LEDs

(Photo By: ING Image)

By: Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman - December 26, 2020

Ultraviolet radiation is a common method of killing bacteria and viruses. Now, researchers from Tel Aviv University have proven that the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, can be killed efficiently, quickly and cheaply using ultraviolet (UV) light-emitting diodes (UV-LEDs) at specific frequencies.“

We discovered that it is quite simple to kill the coronavirus using LED bulbs that radiate ultraviolet light,” said Prof. Hadas Mamane, head of the Environmental Engineering Program at Tel Aviv University's School of Mechanical Engineering, who led the study with Prof. Yoram Gerchman and Dr. Michal Mandelboim.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

US, Israeli governments team up to invest $7.15 million in clean energy

(Photo By: Ohad Zwigenberg/POOL)

By: Israel Hayom - December 23, 2020

The U.S. Department of Energy and the Israeli Energy Ministry along with the Israel Innovation Authority have selected eight clean energy projects to receive $7.15 million under the Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Energy program. The total value of the projects is $17.4 million, which includes $10.25 million in cost-share from the companies selected for funding.

BIRD Energy began in 2009 as a result of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Since then, including the projects announced today, BIRD Energy has funded 55 projects with a total government investment of approximately $42 million in addition to approximately $55 million in funds matched by the private sector.

Read More: JNS

Boston native makes history as first American woman to complete IAF pilot course

(Photo By: Israel Air Force)

By: JNS - December 23, 2020

A “lone soldier” from the United States made history on Wednesday, when she became the first American woman to complete the Israeli Air Force’s prestigious pilot course, the U.S.-based NGO Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) announced ahead of the graduation ceremony at the Hatzerim Airbase in the Negev.

Boston native Lt. O., 21—a member of a small group of women who have completed the course in the past 25 years—is one of only two women out of a total of 39 current graduates who did so this week.

Read More: JNS

“Fauda” TV Show became icebreaker between Arabs and Jews

(Photo By: Juidin Bernarrd)

By: Anjana Sankar - December 9, 2020

It might have taken Israel years of political maneuvering to strike the latest peace deals with its Arab neighbors, the UAE and Bahrain. But much before the powers in Washington’s White House negotiated the Abraham Accords on September 15 and ended hostilities, the popular Netflix series ‘Fauda’ had melted the ice between traditional foes --- the Jews and the Arabs.

The award-winning Israeli show – in Hebrew and Arabic – that depicted the heat and gore of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was a cross-border success and won over international audience, including those in the Arab world, on Netflix, an American over-the-top (OTT) content platform and production company.

Read More: Khaleej Times

German government funds new initiative to connect with Israeli startups

(Photo By: Reuters)

By: Zev Stub - December 21, 2020

A new program aims to connect Israeli startups with German medium-sized companies.

Elnet-Germany, a nonprofit aimed at strengthening German-Israeli ties, said it launched the German Israeli Network of Startups and Mittelstand (GINSUM) with a grant of more than NIS 2.7 million from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. This is the first time that the German government, on the basis of an official decision by the Bundestag, will invest in the Israeli start-up ecosystem, aiming to address the gap in digitalization of Germany’s small and medium-sized companies.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

New technology lets you photograph moving objects

(Photo By: Lucas Ludwig)

By: Danya Belkin - December 21, 2020

Clear, sharp photography of moving objects, without motion blur, is now possible due to a computational photography process from researchers at Tel Aviv University.

The novel process is based on an optical element that encodes motion information and a corresponding digital image processing algorithm.

This integrated processing method was developed by PhD student Shay Elmalem from the School of Electrical Engineering and published in the journal Optica.

Read More: Israel21c

Israeli-founded maker of ‘smart scooters’ gets $60 million from investors

(Photo By: Courtesy)

By: Shoshanna Solomon - December 21, 2020

Superpedestrian, a maker of smart scooters, has raised some $60 million from investors to expand its fleet of vehicles that have an intelligence system alerting for safety hazards.

Investors in the firm include the Citi Impact Fund, Jerusalem-based OurCrowd, and private equity firm Winthrop Square Capital, the US firm founded by Israel-born CEO Assaf Biderman, said in a statement.

Biderman, who has a background in physics, left for Boston 19 years ago and worked for 13 years in a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where researchers use machine learning and robotics in a bid to solve city problems.

Read More: Times of Israel

Ritual bath from time of Jesus found at Gethsemane in Jerusalem

(Photo By: Yoli Shwartz/Israel Antiquities Authority)

By: Hannah Brown - December 21, 2020

Archaeological excavations by the Antiquities Authority ahead of construction unearthed a 2000-year-old ritual bath near the modern church at Gethsemane, together with the remains of a church from the Byzantine period (ca. 1500 years ago). The finds were uncovered with the assistance of scholars from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum and were presented Monday, with the participation of the Custos of the Holy Land Fr. Francesco Patton.

The Church of Gethsemane (also known as the Church of the Agony or Church of All Nations), located at the foot of the famous Mount of Olives, is one of Christianity’s most important churches and is visited by thousands of pilgrims every year. The modern church was built on the spot where Christian tradition holds that Jesus was betrayed. According to Christian belief, Jesus used to pray on the Mount of Olives (Lk. 22:39) and prayed here on the night before the crucifixion (Matt. 26:36).

Read More: Jerusalem Post

Israeli airlines line up daily Tel Aviv-Morocco flights in wake of peace deal

(Photo By: AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy)

By: i24News - December 14, 2020

In the wake of Thursday's normalization of relations between Israel and Morocco, El Al, Israir and Arkia airlines are lining up to serve the expected rush of tourists to the North African kingdom.

According to Israeli finance and business outlet Globes, El Al - Israel's national carrier - is planning at least one daily flight between the two countries using Dreamliners for the five-hour journey.

Both El Al and Israir management traveled to Morocco in the last year or two as relations between the two countries began to warm considerably. 

Read More: i24News

In 1st for Arab world, Moroccan schools to teach Jewish history and culture

(Photo By: Fadel Senna/AFP)

By: Kaouthar Oudrhiri - December 13, 2020

RABAT, Morocco (AFP) — Jewish history and culture in Morocco will soon be part of the school curriculum — a “first” in the region and in the North African country, where Islam is the state religion.

The decision “has the impact of a tsunami,” said Serge Berdugo, secretary-general of the Council of Jewish Communities of Morocco.

It “is a first in the Arab world,” he told AFP from Casablanca.

Read More: Times of Israel