Israel Active

Jerusalem is Israel’s largest city for both Jews and Arabs with over 919,000 residents (569,900 Jews and 349,600 Arabs). Its tech sector now has 405 companies – doubled in just 8 years.  See beautiful, modern Jerusalem in the youtube video, taken from a drone.

A two-millennia-old subterranean system of three rooms has been uncovered near the Western Wall. The rooms, chiseled by hand out of bedrock prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, is the first evidence of everyday life that went underground in the ancient city.

Israelis Inbar and Marius Nacht are donating NIS 3.5 million (some $1 million) to freelance music industry workers struggling financially during the pandemic. The Nacht Foundation’s money will benefit musicians, light and sound technicians, and production workers.

The Helmsley Charitable Trust has donated $9 million to the Jerusalem College of Technology. It will finance a new building for the Faculty of Life and Health Sciences, which has one of Israel’s largest nursing programs, serving more than 1,000 students annually

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem is sponsoring a wave in Aliyah amid the coronavirus pandemic. Since Feb, it has sponsored flights for 601 Jewish immigrants, with a further 160 in the past week. The ICEJ is also sharing the cost of post-flight quarantine with the Jewish Agency.

A plane carrying 119 immigrants from Ethiopia landed in Israel on the Memorial Day for Ethiopians that did not survive the journey to Israel. The new arrivals were greeted by the new Immigration Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata, Israel’s first female Ethiopian-born minister.

Religious worshipers returned to Israeli synagogues, mosques and churches for the first time in almost two months, as houses of prayer reopened under new coronavirus guidelines. Up to 300 people can pray at the Kotel (Western Wall) at any one time, which will be determined in an on-line raffle.

Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, celebrates the reunification of Jerusalem, after the Six-Day War in June 1967. These photographs contrast pre-67 with post-67. This year, very few will celebrate outdoors. But, hopefully, next year will be different again.

The moment in history when in June 1967, Israel recaptured Jerusalem’s Old City.

The coronavirus is not preventing Israeli farmers from making the land more fruitful.  If you want to join in the spring planting, please click on the UWI link. Or just watch the video to hear from an Israeli farmer who has planted peach trees near the Gaza and Egypt borders.