Israeli eye doctor cares for thousands in Ethiopia

By Diana Bletter - June 12, 2022

It was on a safari through South Africa in 2012 when Elisa and Dr. Morris Hartstein’s four children, all under the age of 12, had what the family now refers to as their “eureka” moment.

As they drove past the shantytowns near Cape Town, the children were so shocked by the poverty that they asked their parents if they could return to Africa and do something to help.

Hartstein, 58, director of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Shamir Medical Center in Israel, recounted how he and his wife searched for volunteer programs but couldn’t find anything suitable for families with young children.

Read More: Israel21c

Israelis okayed to travel to Qatar for November’s World Cup in deal with FIFA

(Photo: AP/Darko Bandic)

By Amy Spiro - June 9, 2022

Israeli soccer fans will be able to travel to Qatar for the World Cup in November, despite the two nations having no formal diplomatic relations, Israel announced on Thursday after reaching a deal with world soccer body FIFA.

In a joint announcement from the ministers of foreign affairs, defense and culture and sport, Israel said its citizens — who ordinarily can only enter Qatar on a foreign passport — will be able to freely travel and attend games there during the upcoming tournament.

Under the terms of the deal reached with FIFA, the sport’s international governing body, Israelis seeking to attend must first purchase a ticket to a game, then apply online for a Fan ID card, approval of which grants its holder entry to Qatar and enables them to order accommodation.

Read More: Times of Israel

Dubai International Chamber to open office in Tel Aviv

(Photo: Ministry of Economy and Industry)

By Ricky Ben-David - June 8, 2022

The Dubai International Chamber, one of the emirate’s three chambers of commerce, is set to open a representative office in Tel Aviv to facilitate trade and investment between business communities in both Israel and Dubai.

According to an official announcement issued this week, the Tel Aviv office of the Dubai International Chamber will identify business and investment opportunities in Israel and “also support Israeli companies with their entry into the Dubai market and help them leverage the emirate to expand their reach into markets across the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], Africa and Asia.”

The announcement came after a meeting on Monday at the Chamber’s headquarters between Hamad Buamim, president and CEO of Dubai Chambers, Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry Orna Barbivay, Israel’s Ambassador to the UAE Amir Hayek, and other representatives from the Israeli embassy in the United Arab Emirates and Dubai Chambers.

Read More: Times of Israel

Israel and Saudi Arabia said in US-brokered talks to improve relations

. (Photo: Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace via AP)

By TOI Staff - June 6, 2022

Saudi Arabia is engaging in talks with Israel on economic ties and “security arrangements,” as it adjusts to shifting attitudes in the Middle East, where the Jewish state is not longer universally seen as an undisputed enemy, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The kingdom has identified growing support among young Saudis for establishing ties and is moving toward advancing cooperation, according to the report.

Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have official diplomatic relations, but covert ties have warmed in recent years, as the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has increasingly been seeing Israel as a strategic partner in the fight against Iranian influence in the region.

Read More: Times of Israel

‘Israel is back’: Revitalized ties in Africa touted at Paris conference

(Photo: MFA)

By Lazar Berman - June 4, 2022

PARIS — “Israel is back in Africa” was the unmistakable message of a conference here this week on the Jewish state’s ties with the continent in the years ahead.

Organized by Israel’s embassy in France (which paid for this reporter’s flight) and the American Jewish Committee’s Paris office, the one-day event brought together French and African journalists, diplomats, entrepreneurs and artists to examine the future of Israeli cooperation with African countries and businesses.

“The main message is that Israel has many assets to share with Africa, and it can create a win-win partnership,” AJC Paris director Anne-Sophie Sebban-Bécache told The Times of Israel. “The idea is to focus on those new areas where the relationship can thrive and to get the different actors to invest more in these relations.”

Read More: Times of Israel

New segment of Jerusalem’s 2,000-year-old Low-Level aqueduct revealed

(Photo: Alexander Wiegmann, Israel Antiquities Authority)

By Amanda Borschel-Dan - May 29, 2022

Recent excavations in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood are resurrecting one of the ancient city’s main water suppliers — the 2,000-year-old Low-Level Aqueduct that brought water to the Temple Mount from Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem, 21 kilometers away.

Used until the British Mandate, when it was discarded for new electric pump technology, the newly uncovered segment of the Hasmonean-era water line — currently some 40 meters — will be conserved and integrated into a neighborhood park in cooperation with the Jerusalem Municipality and the Moriah Jerusalem Development Corporation.

“This is a real historical monument of the city,” Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Yaakov Billig, an expert in ancient aqueducts, told The Times of Israel on Sunday, Jerusalem Day.

Read More: Times of Israel

Belgian teacher who hid Jewish children during Holocaust dies at age 101

(Photo: Orel Cohen/Flash 90)

By Michael Horovitz - June 3, 2022

Andrée Geulen-Herscovici, a teacher from Belgium who helped save approximately 1,000 Jewish children during the Holocaust, died on Wednesday in Ixelles, Belgium, aged 101 years old.

As a young teacher, Geulen-Herscovici was disturbed by the Nazi occupation of her hometown of Brussels when Jewish students arrived at her school wearing yellow stars. She told her students — both Jewish and non-Jewish — to come to school wearing aprons to cover the symbol.

The discriminatory Nazi policies prompted Geulen-Herscovici to join the rescue organization Comité de Défence des Juifs (Jewish Defense Committee) in 1942. There, she met the Jewish activist Ida Sterno, who needed a non-Jewish person to assist her in rescue efforts.

Geulen-Herscovici was among several non-Jewish women who were tasked by the rescue organization with quietly approaching Jewish families to suggest they give up their children to hide them. She also transferred children between various hiding places.

“It was the hardest thing to do, not telling a mother where I was taking her son,” Geulen-Herscovici recalled in an interview.

Read More: Times of Israel

West Bank relics reveal history of ancient Jewish revolt in Tekoa Valley

By i24news - May 10, 2022

'This cave was used as a hiding place for the Jewish rebels during the Bar Kokhba revolt'

Dr. Dvir Raviv, an archaeologist with Israel’s Bar Ilan University, spoke with i24NEWS on the history of the Tekoa Valley in the West Bank and the area’s ties to an ancient Jewish revolt.

“Geographically, we are standing on the seam line between the desert and the hillside. The place is very rich in caves,” Raviv told i24NEWS.

“There are natural water sources here - springs and small rivers - which have attracted refugees for hundreds of thousands of years.”

Raviv and his colleagues surveyed a collection of caves in the area back in 2019 and uncovered relics from the Bar Kokhba revolt - an ancient Jewish uprising against the Roman Empire.

Read More: i24news

Israel’s Watergen makes water from air for Syrian refugees

By Sarah Levi - June 1, 2022

Israeli company Watergen has provided one of its water-from-air generators to a medical facility in the Syrian city of Raqqa in a collaborative partnership with the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA), a humanitarian organization comprised of faith-based and secular supporters aimed at supplying aid to Syrian refugees.

The ongoing civil war in Syria has left some four million Syrians internally displaced in the country’s northern region where they lack access to clean drinking water, electricity, healthcare and education.

According to UN Security Council report, “people in Syria’s north and northeastern regions remain unable to reliably access sufficient supplies of safe water for reasons both environmental and man-made.”

Read More: Israel21c

Israel and UAE sign historic free-trade agreement

By JNS - May 31, 2022

Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a free trade agreement on Tuesday in Dubai. The deal is the first of its kind between Israel and an Arab state.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid hailed the agreement, calling it historic, and thanked Israel’s Economy and Industry Minister Orna Barbivai for her contribution to achieving it. Barbivai attended the signing ceremony in Dubai, together with her UAE counterpart Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri and UAE Minister for Foreign Trade Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi.

Barbivai said on Monday that customs duties will be eliminated on 96 percent of products, including food, agriculture, cosmetics, medical equipment and medicine, according to Reuters.

Read More: JNS

Senior Israeli official said to visit Saudi Arabia amid growing talk of warming ties

(Photo: Collage/AP)

By TOI Staff - May 28, 2022

A senior Israeli official reportedly visited Saudi Arabia very recently amid growing speculation that Jerusalem and Riyadh are readying small steps toward normalizing relations.

The official was warmly hosted at a Riyadh palace for talks on various aspects of security and other coordination, Israel’s Channel 12 reported Friday, without citing a source.

The network said the sides discussed regional security interests that have further aligned in recent years over common threats posed by Iran.

Read More: Times of Israel

340 Ethiopian immigrants to arrive next week as part of renewed operation

(Photo: Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

By Michael Horovitz - May 27, 2022

Two flights carrying 340 Ethiopian Jewish immigrants will land in Israel next week as part of a renewed effort to bring remaining community members to Israel, the Aliyah and Absorption Ministry announced on Thursday.

The operation, which aims to bring to Israel 3,000 Ethiopians who have been waiting for years at transit camps in Gondar and Addis Ababa, will resume following a year-long break and extended struggle by Immigration and Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata.

A delegation led by Yaakov Hagoel, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and de facto head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, will leave for Ethiopia on Tuesday.

Read More: Times of Israel

Archeologists search for clues in 2,100-year-old farmstead mystery

(Photo: Emil Aladjem, Israel Antiquities Authority)

By John Jeffay - May 26, 2022

A farmstead that was “frozen in time” for 2,100 years has been discovered in northern Israel.

Experts believe the inhabitants fled in haste, grabbing a few essentials, but leaving behind a treasure trove of everyday items.

Among the artefacts recovered are dozens of loom weights used for weaving garments, large ceramic storage vessels, iron agricultural implements, including picks and scythes, and coins dating back to the second half of the second century BCE.

Read More: Israel21c

Bennett mourns ‘horrific murder of innocent children and teachers’ in Texas massacre

By TOI STAFF and AP - May 25, 2022

Israeli leaders on Wednesday expressed their condolences after a gunman massacred at least 19 children at an elementary school in Texas.

Local authorities said two adults were also killed during the shooting spree in the town of Uvalde. The attacker, who shot and critically wounded his grandmother before the attack, was killed by law enforcement.

“Israel mourns together with the American people the horrific murder of innocent children and teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said.

Read More: Times of Israel

Israel ends COVID tests for international arrivals as pandemic continues to recede

(Photo: Nati Shohat/Flash90)

By TOI Staff - May 21, 2022

Israel on Saturday ended the requirement for COVID-19 testing upon landing at Ben Gurion Airport, over two years after the onset of the pandemic, as the country continues to remove remaining limitations on the public in line with the pandemic’s decline.

Israeli and foreign travelers will also no longer be required to provide a negative test result prior to boarding a flight to Israel.

The rules were updated due to declining COVID-19 morbidity, the Health Ministry said, adding that they will apply at all air, land and sea crossings.

Read More: Times of Israel

Arab Christian Kickboxing Champ Says He’s Proud To Be Israeli

By Israel Today Staff - May 20, 2022

Amid all the talk of “nakba” both here and in America, it’s refreshing to hear the voice of an Arab citizen who’s proud to be Israeli.

Earlier this week, Loay Sakas caught the attention of all Israel when he won the gold medal at the International Turkish Open Kickboxing World Cup in Istanbul.

But he really made waves with what he did following that momentous victory.

After defeating his final opponent, Sakas, an Arab Christian from the Western Galilee region, proudly raised an Israeli flag.

Read More: Israel Today

Israeli university takes in young Ukrainian math prodigies

(Photo: Bar-Ilan University Spokesman's Office)

By Diana Bletter - May 19, 2022

They fled the war and now, 13 of Ukraine’s top high school math geniuses have landed in Israel for a specially created program at Bar-Ilan University’s International School.

“My mother took me as far as Poland but then I had to say goodbye,” said Leonid Diachenko, 14, from Kyiv, who witnessed the horrors of the war. “It was really hard to say goodbye because I don’t know when I’ll see her again.”

Dan Carmon, an engineer at StarkWare, one of the main donors to the project, is a coach on the Israel Youth Math Team. He said that he knew the Ukrainian coaches from competitions, and he and his colleagues were “crushed by the plight of the Ukrainian team.”

Read More: Israel21c

Herod’s royal bathtubs were made in Israel

(Photo: Prof. Amos Frumkin, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

By John Jeffay - May 18, 2022

King Herod the Great had his bathtubs made of alabaster quarried in Israel rather than Egypt, as has always been assumed, according to a research team at Bar-Ilan University.

The ruthless first-century ruler brought Roman cultural norms – including bathing and architectural innovation – to Judea during his reign.

Two of his lavish, royal bathtubs were discovered over 40 years ago at the Kypros fortress and the palace of Herodium, south of Jerusalem.

Read More: Israel21c

For first time in 50 years, Israeli diplomat presents credentials in Chad

By Amy Spiro - May 17, 2022

An Israeli diplomat presents his credentials to the president of Chad for the first time in 50 years.

Ben Bourgel, the non-resident ambassador to a host of African nations, including Senegal, Gambia and Guinea, presents his credentials to Chad President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno.

“This marks an important benchmark in the deepening of the relations between Chad and Israel since their resumption in 2019,” tweets the Israeli Embassy in Senegal. “Ambassador Bourgel and his team will work to strengthen the cooperation between the two countries in areas of common interest such as climate changes, agriculture, water management and health.”

Israel and Chad announced the reestablishment of diplomatic relations in January 2019, after Chad severed ties with Israel in 1972 due to pressure from Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Read More: Times of Israel

Some Jewish students say they feel ostracized on college campuses over support for Israel

(Photo: Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)

By Mike Damiano - May 14, 2022

On the afternoon of Feb. 28, when it seemed like her life was falling apart, Natalie Shclover, a senior at the University of Connecticut, scrolled through the dozens of messages that were being posted about her online. One in particular stood out: “This should be a warning for all of the dirty zionists on this campus.”

The message was posted anonymously on YikYak, a social media network popular on college campuses, and was part of a wave of online invective that had been building around her since the early afternoon. That’s when Shclover and her boyfriend had an argument tangentially related to the Israel-Palestine conflict with four other students at a campus library. After one of the four students recorded a snippet of the exchange, several of them posted it on their social media accounts, alongside captions accusing Shclover, who is Jewish, and her boyfriend of Islamophobic harassment. (The four students, as well as Shclover’s boyfriend, are Muslim.)

The video did not seem to support the accusation. It showed Shclover arguing briefly and then turning around. As she walked away, one of the four students shouted expletives at her, including “[expletive] Zionist.”

But the substance didn’t matter. The video spread throughout campus in minutes. Then came the threats, the public denunciations, the posting of her address online, the ejection from her a cappella club, anonymous outreach to her future employer, and an article in the campus newspaper that reported the accusation as fact without so much as a comment from Shclover.

Read More: Boston Globe