Israel Active

A previous article (see ) mentioned the services provided by volunteers at Bar-Ilan University for non-Hebrew speakers. It links to the Bar-Ilan professional hotline for mental support 03 531 8811. BIU’s emergency interpretation service is *9392 extension 4.

The central Israel city of Holon is often called the children’s city as it hosts a huge children’s museum complex, a children’s library, and kid-friendly story parks. The municipality has now employed artist Rinat Luk Elhaik to paint each of the city’s 23 public shelters in the style of a children’s book.

Walter Bingham, the world's oldest working journalist, has just celebrated his 100th birthday in Jerusalem. He escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 via Kindertransport, joined the British Army, and made Aliyah in 2003. He still hosts a weekly news program on Israel News Talk Radio.

It’s hard to believe, but in the middle of a war, an Israeli NGO has managed to devote resources to help the victims of the Jan 1st earthquake and tsunami that hit central Japan. Two SmartAID members in Japan at that time worked to provide phone and Internet access and off-grid electricity to victims and medics.

Recent visitors to Israel included 29 University of Pennsylvania faculty members on a 3-day solidarity visit. Also, US data-analysis software giant Palantir Technologies is holding the firm’s first board meeting of 2024 in Tel Aviv, to show solidarity with Israel.

Many thousands of elderly Israelis employ carers from the Philippines. Nearly all have a rest day on the Jewish Shabbat, but many now volunteer to spend their free Saturday working for those short-staffed Israeli farmers missing reservists in the IDF and foreign workers who have gone home.

KKL-JNF has inaugurated the “Path of Heroines,” planting trees at the entrance of Ofakim Park in honor of 20 Israeli women who put their lives at risk to save others on Oct 7. Of the terrorists, Ofakim mayor Danino said, “Wherever they sought to bring death, we will create the foundation for a better life”.

The all-female IDF Sky Rider unit operates the drones (UAVs) that protect troops on the ground.  Read here about a battle where they were the eyes in the sky for the 13th Battalion in one of the major battles of the ground incursion Gaza and helped the soldiers on the ground emerge unscathed.

KKL-JNF and the WZO’s Zionist Leadership Academy is a 10-month program to develop young global leaders who will strengthen connections between their communities and Israeli institutions. Read about the recent mission to Israel of 18 program graduates from 14 countries.

Frontpage Magazine’s Man of the Year is the IDF Soldier. It writes, “In a year of defeatism and surrender, he is fighting back… The men on the front lines are not the politicians or the generals, they’re among the 360,000 reservists … who left behind their homes, families, and jobs to go and fight.”