Israel Active

Doctors gave Yulia just hours to live in May after she was hit by shrapnel from a Hamas rocket. Despite a 2-month coma, losing masses of blood, having one leg amputated, and 13 complex operations, she has now been discharged to the delight of her daughter.

The Israeli delegation (PM, journalists, security staff etc.) visiting the US President, had to spend Shabbat at a hotel near the White House. Due to Covid regulations, they could not attend a synagogue in the city, so they created a “pop-up” Israeli synagogue in one of the hotel rooms.

Services have restarted at the ancient Yemenite synagogue in the Yemenite Village (Kfar HaShiloachin) in Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood. Members of Israel’s Yemenite community blew Yemenite shofars, as they did from the 1880s until the Jordanians expelled them in 1948.

When Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe (see previously) flies to the International Space Station next year, he will carry a 1,900-year-old coin from the Bar Kochba Jewish rebellion against the Roman occupation of Judea.  Bar Kochba is Hebrew for “son of the Star”.

An entire IDF unit has donated its hair to Zichron Menachem – an Israeli charity that supports children with cancer.  Children with cancer often lose their hair when being treated with chemotherapy. Hair donations are used for hairpieces to help children feel beautiful.

Mark Halawi (see previously) has just received his Israeli citizenship. He was born and raised in Kuwait but moved to Jerusalem (via Jordan, Syria and Canada) when he discovered that his mother was Jewish and had married a Muslim during the British Mandate.

Israel has signed an agreement to boost imports of Jordanian agricultural products during this coming year following Rosh Hashana. Every seventh year is “Shmita”, the time that Torah states that land in Israel belonging to Jews must rest and lie fallow.

Israeli NGO Shurat Hadin of legal volunteers has had an overwhelmingly positive response to its Weissblum Internship Program to train Israel's next generation of leaders in the public-legal arena. Last year was only for Israelis, but this year anyone can apply – and applications are flooding in.

A total of 145 ShinShinim (gap-year emissaries) depart this month for communities around the world on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Israel. They all volunteered to spend their time pre-IDF service, working with Jewish organizations to help strengthen world Jewry’s relationship with Israel.

An Israeli girl found a 1,500-year-old coin at the Korazim archaeological park – the site of an ancient Jewish village near the Sea of Galilee. The coin dates to the Talmudic period between the 4th and 5th centuries CE - the peak period of the Jewish village at Korazim.