Israel Active

University students Eliav Marland and Etti Davidov will marry this coming week. They met thanks to cancer charity Zichron Menachem having both recovered from cancer treatment. A lovely story to celebrate Tu b’Av (15th of Av) - the Jewish traditional day of romance.

Holocaust survivor Shoshana Ovitz celebrated her celebrated her 104th birthday at the Western Wall in Jerusalem together with 90% of her descendants - over 400 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.

The Jerusalem municipality has instigated several sanitation reforms in order to improve the environment and quality of life in the capital. These include garbage disposal on Saturday night, additional cleaning companies, removing abandoned vehicles and cleaning historic buildings.

A new exhibit “The Mount” at the Tower of David Museum offers the public a unique glimpse at 180 years of photographs of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. They document the history of the most holy Jewish site from 1839 to recent times.

242 new immigrants (Olim) from the US and Canada have just arrived in Israel. They came on the 60th charter flight organized by NGO Nefesh b’Nefesh and the Jewish Agency. They included the 60,000th Oleh to be funded by NbN since the NGO began work in 2002.

Russian-Israeli billionaire Roman Abramovich has made a large donation to KKL-JNF to help afforestation, forest rehabilitation and fight desertification in the Negev. The gift will also fund a new forest dedicated to Lithuanian Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

The World Zionist Organization honored Ilana Metzger, Joy Wolfe (StandWithUs UK President and VeryGoodNewsIsrael supporter) and Ruth Jacobs for their Zionist activism by awarding them Golden Golda Awards - named after former Israeli premier Golda Meir.

A special flight, organized by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, brought 121 new immigrants to Israel from the Ukraine. They were welcomed at a special ceremony attended by Israel’s Prime Minister, the Absorption Minister and the president of the IFCJ Yael Eckstein.

I briefly mentioned previously the Israel Forever Foundation. It has just launched the “My Herzl International Youth Essay Competition,” to mark the anniversary of Theodor Herzl’s passing. Teens worldwide, aged 13 to 17, are invited to write about their vision for continuing Herzl’s dream.

Israeli NGO Ezer Mizion found a match on their bone marrow database for a young cancer patient. They then discovered the potential donor was trekking somewhere in the Far East. They finally located her at Kasol Chabad in the Himalayas, and she happily agreed to be a donor. That was just the start!