Israel hunts for crocodile on the run, after tip from Jordan

(Photo By: Jorge Novominsky)

By: TOI Staff - August 29, 2021

Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority said Sunday it was hunting for a crocodile, after being alerted that the dangerous reptile was on the loose along the border with Jordan.

The Jordanian Army informed the Israel Defense Forces that a crocodile was seen in the Yarmouk River, the largest tributary for the Jordan River, Channel 12 News reported.

The parks authority confirmed to the station that it had been alerted that there could be a crocodile lurking between Sha’ar HaGolan and the small northern community of Masada (not to be confused with

the Dead Sea-area desert fortress).

Read More: Times of Israel

Cairo Genizah paper may hold key to secrets of Qumran, Dead Sea Scrolls

(Photo By: Hadar Yahav)

By: Rosella Tercatin - August 29, 2021

A mystical religious ceremony described in several Dead Sea Scrolls and in a medieval document from the Cairo Genizah holds the key to understanding the mysteries of the archaeological site of Qumran, new research suggests.

The nature and distinctive characteristics of Qumran, the nearest site to the caves where the legendary 2,000-year-old documents were found, have been debated by scholars for decades. It was thought to be a settlement where the Jewish sect of the Essenes lived; some proposed that its residents were not Essenes but a different community; others said it was wrong to attribute the area to a specific group; while according to some experts, Qumran might have been a fortress.

No matter the interpretation, some puzzling elements remain, according to Dr. Daniel Vainstub of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who authored a study recently published in the peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal Religions.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

The Israeli farmers who are giving their land a year’s rest

(Photo By: Ben’s Farm)

By: Abigail Klein Leichman - August 26, 2021

Starting the second week of September, Israeli organic farmer Ben Rosenberg will stop planting in the field. He will grow his veggies in raised containers inside fabric-covered hothouses until next September.

The hothouse setup was expensive, and he will only be able to grow about half the usual 40 seasonal varieties he raises in the field during a normal year.

But it’s not going to be a normal year. The year 5782 on the Jewish calendar – starting at sundown on September 6 – is a sabbatical year for the land.

According to the Bible, every seventh year in the Land of Israel is a shmita (“release”) when debts are canceled and fields lie fallow and ownerless.

Promoting growth through most forms of plowing, planting and pruning is forbidden, as are the usual methods of reaping and harvesting.

Read More: Israel21c

Israel wins first gold in Tokyo Paralympic Games

(Photo By: Isaacson Foundation)

By: JNS Staff - August 25, 2021

Israel’s Iyad Shalabi won the gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke in the S1 category at the Tokyo Paralympics on Wednesday, Israel’s first gold in these games and first ever for an Arab Israeli athlete.

Shalabi was born deaf and mute, and was left a paraplegic following an accident he suffered when he was 13. On Wednesday, he swam the 100 meters in 2:28.04.

Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Yehiel Tropper congratulated the swimmer for his “enormous success” in a Facebook post.

Read More: JNS

Hoping for regeneration in Israel’s burned out forest

(Photo By: Abigail Leichman)

By: Abigail Klein Leichman - August 26, 2021

“In the 10 years I have been a forester, I don’t remember fires like this. It’s something really unusual,” admits Nurit Hibsher,  head of forestry for the central region at the Keren Kayameth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF).

Hibsher was standing in Sataf Forest, west of Jerusalem less than a week after one of the largest wildfires in Israel’s history ripped through the area, destroying 6,200 acres of woodlands in the Judean Hills.

It took some 1,500 firefighters working for 52 hours to finally put out the blazes, which are reported to have been set deliberately in three different locations.

Read More: Israel21c

$15 drug gets COVID patients off oxygen support in under week – study

(Photo By: Daniel Hanoch)

By: Maaya Jaffe-Hoffman - August 23, 2021

Fourteen out of 15 severe COVID-19 patients who were treated in an investigator-initiated interventional open-label clinical study of the drug TriCor (fenofibrate) didn’t require oxygen support within a week of treatment and were released from the hospital, according to the results of a new Hebrew University of Jerusalem study.

Fenofibrate is an FDA-approved oral medication. The results were published on Researchsquare.com and are currently under peer review.

Specifically, the team that was led by HU’s Prof. Yaakov Nahmias carried out the study at Israel’s Barzilai Medical Center in coordination with the hospital’s head of the Infectious Disease Unit, Prof. Shlomo Maayan, and with support from Abbott Laboratories.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

Moroccan king says he hopes ties with Israel will encourage regional peace

(Photo By: AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar)

By: TOI Staff - August 20, 2021

Morocco’s King Mohammed VI has sent a letter to President Isaac Herzog, in which he expressed hope that renewed ties between the countries will encourage regional peace, the president’s office said on Friday.

In the letter, the king thanked Herzog for his letter, delivered by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid when the latter visited the country last week.

Notably, the king did not give any direct response to Herzog’s invitation to come visit Israel.

“I am pleased with the steps taken for the resumption of contacts between our two countries. I am convinced that we shall make this momentum sustainable in order to promote the prospects of peace for all peoples in the region,” Mohammed wrote, according to Herzog’s office.

Read More: Times of Israel

Israel-based org to send private flights to evacuate activists from Kabul

(Photo By: REUTERS TV/via REUTERS)

By: Mike Wagenheim/The Media Line - August 24, 2021

Out of her home in the coastal Israeli town of Zichron Yaakov, Charmaine Hedding is working feverishly to help extract thousands of people desperate to leave Afghanistan.

Hedding is an emergency response specialist and president of the Shai Fund, a humanitarian organization based in Israel and registered in the US. She says her organization is heading up logistics, in coordination with the US military, on a pending series of private flights that are set to swoop in and out of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, in order to evacuate high-risk human rights defenders and other activists, including some high-profile personnel, who are direct targets of the Taliban, the Islamist group that has rapidly retaken control of the country upon the withdrawal of US and international forces, two decades after being overthrown.

“We formed a coalition because, of course, this is a huge operation. We have private charter flights. So, this is a civil society, grassroots initiative, run by NGOs (non-government organizations) like mine. We have raised the funds to get the flights in. So we have our first flight arriving. And these flights can take up to 300 people,” Hedding told The Media Line.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

First-ever endangered loggerhead turtles hatch in Eilat

(Photo By: Omri Omessi/INPA)

By: Naama Barak - Aug 17, 2021

Some 20 tiny loggerhead turtles recently made history when they became the first of their endangered species to be documented hatching on the beach in the southern Israeli city of Eilat before quickly making their way into the Red Sea.

Experts are left wondering why their mother decided to lay her eggs there.

“Loggerhead turtles are a species that hasn’t been seen here in Eilat. There was one that was seen a couple of years ago, a very young turtle that we couldn’t understand where he came from,” explains Omri Omessi, a ranger in the marine unit of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

“We know that they can be found in the Indian Ocean, and we’re an extension of the Indian Ocean, so in terms of the species it’s not that it doesn’t make sense that it would reach here,” he explains.

However, research shows that turtles return to the beaches on which they hatched.

Read More: Israel21c

NYC exhibit of Nazi-looted art tells a tale of Jewish loss and recovery

(Photo By: John Parnell, Photo © The Jewish Museum, New York)

By: Cathryn J. Prince - Aug 20, 2021

In 1937, the Nazi Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda removed Marc Chagall’s “Purim” from the walls of the Museum of Folkwang in Essen, Germany. Depicting people exchanging food and sweets, the vibrant painting was deemed “degenerate” and summarily sold to a Berlin art collector and Nazi party member.

Now, 75 years after the end of World War II, the painting is one of 53 works of art and 80 ceremonial objects on display at New York’s Jewish Museum.

The exhibit, titled “Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art,” opens Friday and will run through January 2022. Recounting how these works withstood the violence of war, it details their often-complicated postwar rescue in a meditation on loss and recovery — both on an individual and collective scale.

Read More: Times of Israel

Holocaust mass grave unearthed in Poland

(Photo By: Shem Olam)

By: Jerusalem Post Staff - August 19, 2021

A Holocaust-era mass grave was found in a backyard in Poland, and a groundbreaking ceremony for a memorial was held on Wednesday 18, according to the organization Shem Olam.

The grave was found in the Polish town of Wojsławice, otherwise known as Voislavize to its Yiddish-speaking residents. Voislavize had been the home to thousands of Jews since the early 19th century and had religious, educational and Zionist institutions that were part of the Jewish community.

The mass grave was discovered by the organization Shem Olam. a Holocaust research and education institute.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

Israelis, Palestinians jointly fight forest fires near Jerusalem

(Photo By: Haim Omri)

By: Abigail Klein Leichman - August 18, 2021

Amid the tragic destruction and displacement caused by wildfires that have blazed through the Jerusalem Hills since August 15, we were heartened to see a Facebook post from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It was a picture that seemed ordinary but was in fact quite extraordinary. The caption reads: “Israeli & Palestinian firefighters take a lunch break together while battling wildfires near Jerusalem. Thank you to the Palestinian Authority for the cooperation.”

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz took to Twitter to express his thanks to the Palestinian Authority for assisting Israeli firefighters on Tuesday.

Read More: Israel21c

Israeli astronaut to take 1,900-year-old Bar Kochba revolt coin to space

(Photo By: Clara Amit/Israel Antiquities Authority)

By: Michael Bachner - August 19, 2021

An ancient coin minted during the Bar Kochba revolt and uncovered recently in a Judean Desert cave will soon make its way to outer space.

Israel’s second-ever astronaut, Eytan Stibbe, has chosen to take the 1,900-year-old coin with him on the Rakia mission to the International Space Station, scheduled for early next year. Stibbe said that he is taking the artifact with him as a symbol of his Jewish heritage.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement on Thursday that Stibbe has recently visited the IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls laboratory in Jerusalem, where he was shown various artifacts, including the coin, as well as 2,000-year-old fragments of the Book of Enoch.

Read More: Times of Israel

Israeli Organization SmartAID, Partners With Local Groups To Provide Relief For Quake-Stricken Haiti

(Photo By: Wikimedia Commons)

By: Matthew Youkilis and Simona Shemer - August 18, 2021

As part of its response, SmartAID teamed up with international aid group Third Wave Volunteers to send out small teams to assess areas affected by the earthquake, like Les Cayes, Camp Perrin, and Jeremie. Third Wave specializes in mobilizing medical and non-medical volunteers, aid, and general resilience after natural disasters.

Shachar Zahavi, SmartAID’s founding director, tells NoCamels that the earthquake destroyed and contaminated water supplies, creating an urgent need for safe and clean drinking water. In response, SmartAID will install new water units for fresh, clean drinking water, and solar-powered lighting for energy in some of the most hard-hit communities.

Read more: NoCamels

Building project unearths ancient history in Tel Aviv suburb

(Photo By: Yoli Schwartz/Israel Antiquities Authority)

By: Stuart Winer - August 18, 2021

Archaeological finds at a construction site indicate there was residential and industrial activity at the location of a Tel Aviv suburb some 1,500 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.

The modern city of Ramat Hasharon, where the excavation was carried out, was established in 1923 as an agricultural community by Jewish immigrants from Poland.

Among the items uncovered at the site of a new residential neighborhood were a mosaic-floored wine press, a chandelier chain, and a gold coin that appeared to have been hand-signed by its owner.

Read More: Times of Israel

Israel dispatches firefighters to battle blazes in Greece

(Photo: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

By Abigail Klein Leichman - August 9, 2021

On August 6, Israel sent a team of 16 firefighters to Greece to assist in dealing with severe wildfires plaguing its neighbor across the Mediterranean Sea.

The firefighting team was formed following a request from the Greek government for assistance in dealing with fires currently raging on the island of Evia, the Peloponnese peninsula and Fokida in the central region north of Athens.

The mission was planned in coordination with the Israeli Embassy in Athens, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Public Security, the National Fire and Rescue Authority and the National Security Council.

Read More: Israel21c

Bahrain-Israel security collab is no secret - top diplomat

(Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

By Lahav Harkov - August 11, 2021

Israelis want to talk about Iran with Bahrain’s Undersecretary for Political Affairs at the Foreign Ministry Dr. Shaikh Abdulla bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, but Al Khalifa wants to talk about peace.

Al Khalifa, who also holds the position of deputy secretary-general of the Supreme Defense Council and is in charge of the Israel portfolio at the ministry, was in Israel for four days this week to deepen ties between the countries 11 months after they announced diplomatic relations.

Along with meetings with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, President Isaac Herzog, and the Head of the IDF Strategic Planning and Cooperation Directorate Maj.-Gen. Tal Kelman, Al Khalifa held meetings with major research institutions – the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, The Institute for National Security Studies and The Abba Eban Center – in his capacity as the chairman of Derasat, the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies.

Al Khalifa also went diving with Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz, resulting in a unique photo of each waving his country’s flag underwater.

Read More: Jerusalem Post

Addis Ababa man battling heart defect gets second free treatment in Israel

(Photo: Save a Child’s Heart)

By Nathan Jeffay - August 11, 2021

A few months ago, Luleseged Kassa of Addis Ababa was devastated to learn that his heart, which had been saved by Israeli doctors when he was a teenager, had a major defect, untreatable in Ethiopia.

The Israeli charity Save a Child’s Heart flew him to Tel Aviv when he was 13, to replace two heart valves. But when he was 33, a leaflet in one of those valves got stuck. In order words, a mechanism that is supposed to open to let blood move forward through the heart during half of the heartbeat stopped working.

He didn’t realize at the time just how serious the problem was — it could well have killed him — or that in Western countries it would have been treated with an emergency operation within 48 hours.

Now, he is recuperating in Tel Aviv, following an operation arranged and funded by Save a Child’s Heart, an organization that has saved nearly 6,000 children from 62 countries through treatment in Israel.

Read More: Times of Israel

Lapid in Morocco 'restoring an ancient peace and friendship'

(Photo: Shlomi Amsalem Stills and Oz Avital Video)

By Lahav Harkov - August 11, 2021

Israel and Morocco are reviving a centuries-old friendship between the Jewish people and the people of Morocco by restoring diplomatic relations, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said on Wednesday, on the first visit to Rabat by an Israeli minister since the Abraham Accords.

“This ancient peace and friendship is being restored by people who rethink and redefine historic disputes,” Lapid said, thanking Moroccan King Mohammed VI for his “vision and courage.”

Lapid quoted Maimonides, who lived in the Moroccan city of Fez, as saying in his Eight Chapters: “Every state can be changed from good to evil and from evil to good if he – the person – decides so. Reality is not set. Reality is a choice we make. For too many years, we let others choose the path of war. Today, we take destiny into our own hands and choose the way of peace. Today, we choose the path set out by Maimonides.”

Read More: Jerusalem Post

Girl finds 1,500-year-old coin at Talmud-era Jewish village in northern Israel

(Photo: Dekel Segev/Israel Nature and Parks Authority)

By Michael Bachner - August 10, 2021

An Israeli girl found a 1,500-year-old bronze coin at the site of an ancient Jewish village near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel on Tuesday, the Nature and Parks Authority said.

The Yitzchaki family from the West Bank settlement of Har Bracha visited the Korazim archaeological park and played a scavenger hunt game involving the unique building style of the Talmud-era village, the parks authority said.

During the game, the girl found the ancient coin on the ground. She handed it to park staff.

“This is an ancient bronze coin that, according to initial estimates, dates to the Talmudic period between the 4th and fifth centuries CE,” said the archaeological park manager, Dekel Segev. “This was the peak period of the Jewish village in Korazim.”

Read More: Times of Israel