Israel Active

52 police officers from 7 US states spent a week in Israel. They trained with Israeli units, saw Israel’s state-of-the-art police academy, and held a ceremony at Jerusalem’s 9/11 memorial. They included members of Police Unity Tour – formed to honor police who made the ultimate sacrifice.

A delegation of influential Miami entrepreneurs and leaders in the tech start-up community has just visited Israel with AJC Project Interchange (American Jewish Committee), to learn from the country's thriving tech and innovation sector, while sharing best practices and making connections.

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China’s Zhang Dejiang - chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. They pledged to strengthen cooperation between parliaments and to share knowledge in fields such as legislation and the environment.

Responders from Israeli aid organization IsraAID and local partner Prodev rushed to help survivors of Hurricane Matthew that devastated Haiti. They were the first to provide food and water for 200 children at Cite Soleil in Port-Au-Prince.

For the second year in a row, the Galilee Druze town of Beit Jann achieved the highest rate (99%) of students passing the high school matriculation exam. The Arab village of Abu al-Hija, outside Karmiel, came in second.

The ten-person team from IsraAID was the only foreign organization in Louisiana aiding flood victims.  They related the gratitude of Louisianans for Israel’s role in recovery efforts, especially that they had come such a long way to help them.

Israeli Foreign Ministry’s MASHAV (Agency for International Development Cooperation) is constructing the Rwanda-Israel Center of Excellence for Horticultural Development near Kigali. It will serve as a hub for agricultural training, using Israeli farming technologies.

Yehia (nicknamed Yaya) is the 16-month-old son of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and is a walking miracle. Pediatric cardiologists from Israel’s Save a Child’s Heart performed a complex eight-hour operation on Yaya on July 31. The story of Yaya’s journey to Israel is fascinating.

Wisam al-Jamal, a Palestinian Arab doctor from Hebron, writes about his work in an Israeli hospital.

Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs participated in a 4-night backgammon (or “shesh besh”) tournament in Jerusalem.  150 attended the first night and even more on the second.  Different perceptions of the rules caused endless light-hearted disputes, but no conflict.