Israel Active

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman presented the first-ever US passport to list Jerusalem as part of Israel. He gave the new travel document to an 18-year-old US citizen, who had fought twice in the US Supreme Court to have his place of birth shown as Jerusalem, Israel.

On the week of Yom Ha’Aliyah, Israel welcomed its 16,000th immigrant of 2020. The second article describes some of the Anglo-Israelis who were key to the founding of the State. They include Chaim Weizmann, David (Mickey) Marcus, Gold Meir, Abba Eban and Henrietta Szold.

A 70-year-old former immigrant from Moldova, remarried his wife at a ceremony in their hometown of Nof Hagalil. It was his 3rd ceremony in a month following conversion to Judaism and Bar Mitzvah. They had a civil marriage 47 years ago, but now decided to have a Jewish wedding.

A montage from Yom Kippur to Sukkot. It includes street prayers, colorful clouds, building, harvest moon, clean streets, the 4 species, small porch sukkahs, President Rivlin’s virtual sukkah and a mobile sukkah pulled by a bicycle.

Fascinating archival 1955 recording of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik ("The Rav") describing the miraculous events leading to the founding of the modern Jewish State. He stated that “were one to document (the history of) the United Nations, they accomplished nothing else.”

This article describes many of the acts of kindness that Israelis perform to help other members of the Startup community. They include rent-free offices, networking, brainstorming, training, sharing data and referrals to investors. Although competition is fierce, Israeli entrepreneurs want others to succeed too.

A bridegroom’s father was in Hadassah hospital’s Covid-19 ward. So the Yad Avraham organization arranged for the young couple to be married under the father’s hospital window so he could watch. The number of celebrants was restricted, and all wore facemasks, but tears of joy were visible.

Dozens of ancient jars and complete clay objects have been discovered inside a water hole at the Khirbet Kafr Mer archaeological site at Beit El. The site is deemed to have been part of a Jewish community that lived in the area roughly 2000 years ago.

Jerusalem just received an “out of the blue” downpour. It was 30 degrees centigrade and no rain was forecast when a lone nimbus cloud hovered low over the central mountains of Israel and unloaded its contents over the holy city. Jews began praying for rain just over a week ago.

Two Christian tourists have just produced a short film on the Temple Mount. It highlights the amazing history of this fascinating location. The video has had over 480,000 views in 10 days.