Israel Active

The 40-minute Israeli film "Aya" has been included in the final list of nominations for an Oscar in the category of "Best Live Action Short".  Aya follows the encounter between an Israeli woman driver and a Scandinavian musician who gets into the wrong car at the airport.

When filmmaker Micha Shagrir donated a 1667 Hebrew Bible to Haifa University, staff discovered a Bible written by the same person already on the library's shelves.  An Egyptian Armenian gave Shagrir his Bible in gratitude for his film about the Armenian genocide.

Yaakov Stark’s early-20th Century murals at Jerusalem’s Ades Synagogue (called with affection the “Great Synagogue”) are a masterpiece of early Zionist art, mixing Arabic calligraphy with Art Nouveau.  This article describes the battle to save this heritage of Syrian Jewry.

If you haven’t been to Tel Aviv Port’s entertainment hub along the Mediterranean Sea lately, watch this new video to see why it’s time for another visit.  More than four million visitors each year enjoy its eateries, coffee shops, stores, clubs and the Friday farmers’ market.

Israeli online trading provider Plus500 will feature on the back of the shirts of Spanish soccer champions Atletico Madrid.  Plus500’s platform is based on proprietary technology, is accessible from multiple operating systems and has been translated into over 31 languages.

US actor Kevin Bacon is to star in “Jungle” based on the true story of Israeli adventurer Yossi Ghinsberg, who was lost in the Amazon rainforest for three weeks in 1981.  "Back to Tuichi" was one of Israel’s most popular books in the 1990s. It has been translated into 15 languages.

Jerusalem's annual winter festival, "Hamshushalayim," which takes place over four consecutive weekends, includes an unusual exhibition displayed among supermarket shelves.  The exhibition, "Mivtza" ("sale" in Hebrew), seeks to examine the meeting between modern art and a familiar daily space.

Watch 2000 young Jews and Arabs gathering together at November’s “Simply Singing” event in Jerusalem.  In addition to the music, poetry and dancing, two chefs, one Arab-Israeli, the other Jewish-Israeli worked together to create fusion dishes that reflected both cultures.

This youtube film promoting awareness of recycling in Israel by the Tamir recycling corporation has had almost 900,000 views.  No wonder - it features some phenomenally accurate precision ways to dispose of recyclable containers and plastic bottles.

Just across from Tel Aviv’s Azrieli towers, the former German Templer colony of Sarona has been revitalized and landscaped to include playgrounds and parks.  33 residences dating from 1871 have been renovated and converted into eateries, upscale shops and art galleries.