Israel Active

Sisters Henia and Rywka Borenstein made Aliya in 1948, believing that their entire family had been wiped out in the Holocaust. But their cousins Fanya and Gennadi had made Aliya in 1990 and have just been re-united, thanks to the Borensteins’ testimony in the Yad Vashem database.

For the past 27 years, Rabbi Yitzhak and Sima Peretz prepared food for patients and their families who had to stay in Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital over the Sabbath. The whole hospital then celebrated when Sima Peretz gave birth to a daughter after 30 years of childlessness.

All Burger King chains in Israel will be serving donut burgers specially for the holiday of Hanukkah. The burger will be called "SufganiKing," a play on the Hebrew word for donut, "sufganiyah."

There are 3000 IDF orphans – children of a parent killed whilst serving in the IDF or Israeli police.  The non-profit organization IDF Widows and Orphans is present at important junctions in their lives. They make sure they have a great celebration of their bat/bar mitzva.

The global Shabbat Project connected over 1 million Jews in 1160 cities spread over 94 countries. In Israel alone, 163 cities and towns took part in special events. These included pre-Shabbat challah baking activities, as well as post-Shabbat Havdalah and musical ceremonies.

Thousands of Israelis (Ethiopians and others) celebrated the Day of Sigd in Jerusalem. The traditional Ethiopian-Jewish festival marks the 50th day after Yom Kippur and brings together a variety of Jewish prayer and customs.

University of Haifa researchers have discovered a massive rectangular stone inscribed with the name Gargilius Antiques, and states that he was Rome’s Prefect of Judea. He ruled during the period leading up to the outbreak of the Bar Kochva revolt in 131 CE. Later, the Romans renamed Judea “Palaestina”.

After many prayers, Israel has had a few consecutive rainy days.  There was even snow on Mount Hermon.  It may be connected to this editor’s visit to the Bob Dylan exhibition at Tel Aviv’s Diaspora Museum where he heard “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”, “Blowing in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s Going to Fall”.

Let’s hope that this kind of video helps bring a new perspective to the conflicts at this holy site.

Jerusalem Municipality and non-profit Leshomra, have launched the “Our Garden” education program in 20 Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) schools.  Based on Torah values, it teaches core environmental concepts, such as not littering, recycling, composting, and water conservation, as the children plant, tend and harvest vegetables in their own schoolyard mini-farm.