Israel Active

Students of the Ben-Zion Netanyahu Elementary School in Samaria’s Barkan have just found locally two 15-centuries-old decorated oil lamps made of clay with the potter’s fingerprints still embedded in them. The discoveries add to the coins and mosaic stones they found in January.

At 10 a.m. on Thursday 12th April, citizens of Israels stopped what they were doing to stand for two minutes of silence for Yom Ha’Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).  On the roads, the beach, the buses, the workers digging up my street for water drainage maintenance. Everywhere.

Shiloh was the capital for the Jewish Kingdom for 369 years before King David made Jerusalem Israel’s capital and Solomon built the first Temple. Archaeologists are currently working on this 3,300-year-old site and making some astounding discoveries.

Just before Passover, Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar discovered coins from 1st century AD during renewed excavations below Jerusalem Temple Mount’s southern wall. They were inscribed “For the Freedom of Zion” and “For the Redemption of Zion”.

Around 100,000 men and women gathered at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City for Birkat HaKohanim, the priestly blessings, that takes place on Passover and Tabernacles. One of the kohanim (priests) was David Friedman – the US Ambassador to Israel.

The tunnels deep below the Western Wall Plaza reveal some amazing sights.  A Roman theatre; the largest stone in Israel and a map of Israel that wasn’t drawn by any human hand.

83-year-old Hanoch Shachar, who lost his whole family in the Shoah, fulfilled his dream by celebrating his Bar Mitzva in Safed, Northern Israel. Shachar is a marathon runner and during the ceremony hoisted without effort the Torah scroll in its heavy metal casing.

I reported previously on the new exhibition at the United Nations of the 3,000-year continuous history of the Jewish people in the city of Jerusalem – Israel’s capital.  This article about the opening event contains a video that is highly recommended to watch.

Every day, significant archeological discoveries that reinforce the historical connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem are revealed in the excavations at the City of David.

During his 5-day visit to the USA, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will check out a special exhibit at the U.N. Headquarters in New York that provides archaeological proof of the 3,000 years of continuous Jewish history in Jerusalem.