Israel Active

Following years of struggling to conceive, a 56-year-old Kiryat Malachi woman gave birth to her first child, a healthy boy.  Tami came on Aliya from Ethiopia during Operation Solomon in 1991.  She has nine brothers and always dreamed of having her own child.

On 4th Feb, in honor of Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish holiday that marks the new year for trees, thousands of Israeli youths volunteered with Leket Israel’s Project Citrus Rescue by picking excess fruit remaining on trees in people’s private gardens, in order to donate it to the poor.

The initiative of Mendel Mintz, the Chabad rabbi of Aspen, Colorado, has setup Golshim L’Chaim-Ski to Live.  The program brings wounded Israeli veterans and victims of terrorism to Aspen to learn how to ski - and boost their spirits.

Nachalot is one of the most popular neighborhoods in Jerusalem.  Sephardim, Ashkenazim, Hassidim, secular, non-Jews, everyone lives together.  Students and tourists make it part of the essential Jewish experience.

The International education non-profit StandWithUs has launched its “Social Media Ambassadors” program. University students will be trained to use multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more, to educate the public at large about the reality of Israel.

During a San Diego State University non-Jewish student’s visit to Israel he saw a Christian church, a Jewish synagogue, and a Muslim mosque all within a block of each other and heard the Muslim call to prayer in Jaffa.  It left him determined to stand up for the democratic Jewish State.

In the Bible there was Deborah and in Talmud times there was Bruriah.  Today, the Efrat Community has Jennie Rosenfeld – the first woman in the history of the State of Israel to fill the role of manhiga ruchanit – spiritual advisor.

Surrounded by the mountains and forests of the green Upper Galilee, Safed (Tzfat) is world-famous for its winding alleyways and old majestic synagogues, its Artists Quarter, its musicians, its history of kabbalah and spirituality.

Armstrong Williams writes an inspiring account of his journey across Israel and the PA territories. His key sentence is, “When you pause to consider what Israel has managed to give to the world, despite being under constant fire from its enemies, it is staggering.”

A Curtiss C-46 Commando transport aircraft, used to rescue 100 Iraqi Jews in 1947, will soon return to Israel after being saved from a metal scrap yard in Argentina.  Operation Michaelberg was launched when the British denied persecuted Iraqi Jews permission to enter Israel legally.