Israel Active

The Jerusalem Municipality distributed 350 Christmas trees to Christian residents before the holidays. It also installed festive decorations and colorful lighting in locations including the Old City’s Christian Quarter. Israel is the the only Middle East country where the Christian population is increasing.

In Dec, Doctors from Israel’s Save a Child's Heart operated on 25 children with congenital heart defects in Lusaka, Zambia. They also brought in experts from Tanzania to help. Back in Israel, SACH has opened a new state-of-the-art Pediatric Care Center & ER.

London-based Iran International reports that an Iranian opposition activist renamed a Tehran street after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, described (in Persian) as “the purifier of evil”. (See video in link.)  A number of recent “incidents” seem to indicate grassroots Iranian support for Israel.

Israel and Argentina on Monday marked 75 years of diplomatic relations at a gala event at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Mutual ties have reached unprecedented heights under Argentinian President Javier Milei. The Argentina-born father of Israel’s Foreign Minister was in the audience.

The three Tel Aviv University professors that won the $1 million Rousseeuw Prize for Statistics (see previously) received their awards at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Their work on the False Discovery Rate (FDR) is of major benefit to medical science.

With the fall of the Assad dynasty in Syria, the region’s Druze and Kurdish populations are looking to Israel for protection against Jihadists. Similarly, Christians in Syria and Lebanon seek an alliance with the Jewish State.

22-year old Maor Korsias, a Haredi Jew from Tiberias, has become an unconventional presence at the police station in Kafr Kanna, with his long sidelocks and black kippah; He has earned the respect of the local community, who affectionately call him “the Sheikh”.

Arab Israeli construction worker Imad Khirbawi saved dozens of Haredi girls after a fire that broke out in a Jerusalem boarding school. He had heard an explosion and, because he knew the building, he broke down a plaster wall to allow the girls to escape the flames.

Superintendent Avital Tzuriel runs the kennel and the 100 handlers that breed Israel Police guard/attack/sniffer dogs. She was one of the first female officers to undergo the 22-week handler course. The unit is separate from the Israel Defense Forces’ internationally acclaimed Oketz unit.

ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran’s team of gardeners with disabilities has cultivated an impressive crop of accessible organic and insect-free strawberries. Fittingly, the first strawberry harvest took place on Dec. 3, recognized annually as International Day of Persons with Disabilities.