Israel Active

The 2017 International Méditerranée Festival takes place in 9 settings in the Israeli city of Ashdod from Jun 8-15. All participating artists come from Mediterranean countries. As well as music, the Festival will host cinematic, culinary and artistic presentations.

Performing in Israel for the first time since 1994, Aerosmith opened their 'Aero Vederci' tour at Tel Aviv's Park Hayarkon.  Steven Tyler joked that he was "making aliya."  Like their hit, they “didn’t want to miss a thing” and later met with the Israeli Prime Minister in Jerusalem.

The next World Lacrosse championships will be held in Netanya in July 2018.  Teams from 50 countries will compete. Israel’s national lacrosse team took second place in the 2016 European championship and seventh place in the most recent world championship in 2014.

More details about Israeli soccer stars Tomer Hemed and (Muslim) Beram Kayal who helped win promotion to the English Premier soccer league for Brighton and Hove Albion.

The 24th annual Israel Day Concert takes place on Sunday 4th Jun in Central Park Manhattan. Admission is free and in addition to the many musical performances includes speakers such as Israel’s UN representative Dani Danon, US diplomat John Bolton and ZOA’s Morton Klein.

The Israel Festival takes place from June 1st to June 18th. It offers high-quality productions in dance, music, drama and performance theater from all over the world, as well as original Israeli productions and free outdoor performances for the general public.

King of Pop Justin Bieber enthralled 50,000 fans at Park Hayarkon in Tel Aviv.  The 90-minute performance included 25 songs, accompanied by lasers, fireworks and acrobats. His first song also helped a pregnant fan (three-weeks overdue) go into labor and later give birth to a healthy baby girl.

With the start of the swimming season, Israel has life guards supervising 144 beaches on the Mediterranean Sea, the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), the Dead Sea and the Red Sea.  This article describes some of them.

Israel narrowly lost 2-1 to Great Britain in the finals of the wheelchair tennis World Team Cup in Sardinia.  Israel had won four world championships previously.

International birdwatchers in Eilat were delighted to spot a long-billed dowitcher in the salt ponds off Israel’s southern coast.  Last seen in Israel in 1984, the dowitcher normally migrates to South and Central America but probably took a wrong turn and headed for Africa instead.