Israel Active

The excitement generated on this Nefesh b’Nefesh Aliya flight from New York is quite infectious.  Watch as 233 people, young and old, religious and secular become Israeli.

As Ed Elhaderi traveled from Jerusalem to Safed to Rehovot, Israel entered his bloodstream.  Hard to imagine that he had been born a Libyan Moslem, educated to hate Jews. He then went to the US University of Wisconsin, met and married a Jewish woman and converted to Judaism.

Legendary U.S. rocker Tom Petty, who passed away recently, performed in Israel in 1987 with the Heartbreakers band on his “Temple in Flames” tour. He had a life-changing experience when he visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Watch how American diplomats at the Tel Aviv embassy handle Rosh Hashana delicacies gefilte fish and regel krusha (calf’s foot jello).  It may make them move to Jerusalem!

For the 2017-2018 academic year, the Municipality of Jerusalem has launched its municipal scholarship fund, which will handout scholarships of NIS 10,000, to 600 students who contribute 140 hours to community service during the academic year.

I particularly enjoyed this timely cartoon from Dry Bones.

11 gorgeous pictures that capture the beauty of the harvest festival in Israel.  And (TY ) pictures of Jerusalem moving from the festival of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) into Sukkot.

13-year-old Shira Futornick of Palo Alto, California raised $50,000 for Israel’s Arava International Center for Agriculture Training (AICAT). It was a part of her bat mitzvah tzedakah project. Shira had seen AICAT during her older sister’s bat mitzva tzedakah program in 2015.

After hearing his story, 17-year-old Californian teen, Drew Principe, raised $15,000 to enable 89-year-old Shoah survivor Henry Oster to travel to Israel where he would meet his last living relative and finally celebrate his bar mitzvah.

This photo taken at the back of a restaurant in central Jerusalem captures two young men praying – one Muslim about to bow on his prayer mat, the other a Jew with his Tefillin on.  Religious tolerance and freedom of religion being practiced in the holiest city in the world.