Israel Active

During Hanukkah 23-year-old Tzur was reunited with the Magen David Adom medics who saved him from drowning 21 years ago. Two-year-old Tzur was unconscious for 4 days, and the doctors said his chances of recovery were slim. Then, just as his parents lit the first candle for Hanukkah, Tzur woke up.

United Hatzalah EMT Rafael was attending a family Hanukkah party when his grandmother choked on some food. Family members held her upright as Rafael used the Heimlich Maneuver to dislodge the food. Rafael’s Safta restarted breathing and was taken to hospital for further checks.

In August a terrorist shot a pregnant woman in the stomach. Doctors at Jerusalem’s Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center had to deliver her premature baby of 26-weeks. On erev Hanukkah, as mother and healthy son left the hospital, her husband said, "Blessed is He who performed a miracle for us in this place.”

LEGO Store Tel Aviv in the Dizengoff Center contains what is believed to be the largest-ever LEGO menorah. It comprises between 131,000 and 136,000 bricks, is 4.52 meters tall and 4.7 meters wide.

Jerusalem’s festive lights were enchanting – both in the Botanical Gardens and on the Streets of Jerusalem.

Three children from Kibbutz Parod in the northern Galilee found a 2,000-year-old oil lamp in the kibbutz grounds. It sheds light on the size of the ancient Jewish community of that area as the discovery was outside the site where the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting a dig.

Here is a translated part of Moshe Solomon’s maiden Knesset speech, “The young boy who was once a shepherd in Shira, Ethiopia, stands here today in the Knesset of Israel, one of the 120 members of the Great Assembly of our time.”  Please read the rest – it is most inspiring.

During Hanukkah, the Hasmonean Museum in Modi'in will display a box of 15 silver coins from the Maccabean revolt 2,200 years ago. They were discovered in May this year in caves in the Judean desert, probably the property of one of the Jews involved in overthrowing the Syrian-Greek rulers.

29-year-old Carlota Valenzuela began a 6,000 km pilgrimage from Finisterre, Spain to Jerusalem, Israel on 2nd Jan 2022. 10 months later she was greeted at the Jaffa Gate by Israel’s Noga Sher-Greco, Director of Religious Tourism. On the way, Carlota met with the Pope in Rome.

To celebrate their coming of age, 21 boys and nine girls came from all over Israel for a guided tour and Bat / Bar Mitzva ceremony at the Kotel. It was organized by Young Israel in Israel’s Judaic Heritage Program for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired, the Jewish Agency and World Mizrachi.