Israel Active

Gallery and video of the Israeli PM’s visit to Singapore and its Jewish community. Also, the transcript of his speech to Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

I reported previously that IsraAID was the first foreign NGO to provide aid to Italian victims of the latest earthquake.  Over six months later and after another quake, IsraAID is still there, providing thermal blankets, jackets, shoes, portable heaters and other material.

Israel’s MOFET Institute is at the forefront of teachers’ training and the development of innovative methods for teaching children. Its Technology Education and Cultural diversity (TEC) center has developed a “virtual world” to educate about co-existence.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin welcomed a delegation of Indonesian Muslim leaders to his Jerusalem residence. The delegation was visiting Israel on the initiative of the Australia / Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC). Rivlin said that his father, Yosef Yoel Rivlin, translated the Quran into Hebrew in 1936.

Israel’s IsraAID and New York Jewish organization Amaliah distributed 1.5 tons of relief supplies collected in Israel to refugees suffering in snow and sub-zero temperatures on the Greek island of Lesbos. It includes warm and waterproof clothing, sleeping bags and blankets.

A delegation of French doctors visited Israel to learn about emergency protocols for hospitals in situations of mass casualties and terrorist attacks. They saw Tel Aviv Sourasky’s underground hospital, built to withstand nuclear, chemical, biological and missile attacks.

I reported previously on the train link from Israel to Jordan.  One of its aims is to connect to a future Free Trade Zone in a 175-acre shared industrial and business enclave on the Jordanian side of the River Jordan. Mines have been cleared and work has begun on the bridge.

A 29-year-old Syrian woman recently gave birth to a healthy girl in Ziv Medical Center in Safed, and in gratitude to the State of Israel, named the baby Sarah. The woman came from a village, around which every hospital and clinic had been destroyed in the long civil war.

The Colel Chabad charity and Israel’s Ministry of Social Services and Welfare are providing 40 disabled adults aged 18 - 50 with specially adapted communal apartments. Located in Migdal HaEmek in northern Israel, they provide completely independent and private living spaces.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) has again stepped in this winter to provide some 14,000 poor elderly Israelis with home-heating assistance amid the cold winter weather. Vouchers were given to elderly in need in 100 municipalities.