Israel Active

Former NBA All-Star Amar’e Stoudemire has long claimed to have “Hebrew roots”, studied Judaism and practiced its cultural customs. Now he is formally converting to the Jewish religion. Stoudemire partly owns hoops team Hapoel Jerusalem and has his own brand of Israeli wine.

Israeli law currently prevents Jews from praying on Temple Mount. However, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s court has ruled that it is permitted for visitors to the Temple Mount compound to call out, “Am Yisrael chai” (“The people of Israel live”), because it is a patriotic slogan rather than a prayer.

Lovely 10-minute animation highlighting the last 2000 years of Jewish history and the return to the Land of Israel.

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.