Israel Active

March 14th is Pi-day as the date can be written as 3.14. This year it also coincided with Purim so may be a Purim “spiel” (i.e. a joke). Israeli theoretical physicist Yehuda Ashkelon has memorized the value of Pi to 25,333 decimal places in Spanish - a new Israeli record (9th globally) and a world record for Spanish.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has offered Argentina assistance following deadly floods south of the nation’s capital of Buenos Aires. A storm hit Bahía Blanca, where 12 inches of rain fell in the city over several days; the historical monthly average is about 5 inches.

Another article (see previously) about the recent Athens conference to discuss expanding the use of barn owls for pest control.  Then 60 Palestinian Arab, Jordanian and Israeli experts met to discuss solutions to the Middle East’s water, energy, food-security and overall environmental problems.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) a silver-plated beeper as a souvenir of “Operation Beeper”. “When that story broke, I was like, ‘Oh, I love it,’” Senator Fetterman said. “Thank you for this.” The PM said, the real beeper was much lighter, but changed history.

Major (res.) Yossi Levy will soon become the first haredi battalion commander in the IDF. He said, “I hope that one day young haredim will see me as a role model.” He is currently serving his fifth round of reserve duty and hopes to be the first of many Haredi commanders.

The Jerusalem Post hosts its fourth annual Women Leaders’ Summit on 25 Mar. It brings together some of Israel's most influential women driving change. The summit highlights the strength, creativity, and leadership, of women in business, government, and technology.

The new Lone Soldiers Program Resilience Center (see ) is an initiative of Nefesh B’Nefesh and Friends of the IDF, with Sheba Medical Center. It offers specialized therapeutic and emotional support to the 3,500 people who leave their family to make Aliyah and enlist in the IDF.

Syrian minorities want Israel to protect them from the new Syrian government and jihadist groups. “Israel is the Iron Dome of the Druze in Syria” said a cleric from the Druze city of Sweida.  And after 1,000+ the pro-Assad Alawites were killed, their leaders also begged Israel for help.

Israel’s PM headed a ceremony in Jerusalem to celebrate “Operation Moses” - Israel’s 1984 mission, to bring to Israel the community known as Beta Israel from Ethiopia via Sudan. Some 170,000 Ethiopian Jews now live in Israel, including Adi Jegna who spotted the bus bomb last month.

Irish police used Israel’s Cellebrite to convict a man who murdered his wife in Dublin two years ago. Technical specialists used Cellebrite to extract data from the husband’s cellphone, having previously been unable to bypass its encryption. The Irish media wasn’t happy.