Israel Active

On the recent Jewish festival of Purim, two window cleaners dressed as the superhero Spiderman cheered up young patients at Israel’s Schneider Children’s Medical Center.

The UK’s Zionist Federation has launched its re-branded image. It has also released a new film that publicizes Israel’s technological achievements, thriving economy and culture.

Naale Elite Academy enables students to complete their last three years of high school in Israel while learning to be independent, self-sufficient and resilient. The program, co-funded by the State of Israel and the Jewish Agency, provides a full scholarship with all expenses paid until graduation.

United With Israel has just featured my hometown. The Marmaluke ruins, the Yemenite museum and the Iris reserve enhance the beautiful beaches, exciting shuk and splendid eateries.

Israelis contributed NIS 5.7 billion (approx £1 billon or $1.6 billion) to nonprofit organizations in Israel in 2011 - up from NIS 4.1 billion in 2009. It is the first comparison ever performed by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.

The Azrieli family has donated $21 million to Israel’s Technion, to help build a Tel Aviv campus. David Azrieli, 91, studied at the Technion in the 1940s and fought in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.

29-year-old French-born, UK-raised lone soldier Isaac Moyal is Israel’s oldest recruit to the paratroop regiment. He has already shown that he can more than keep up with teenagers. It helps that he has a brown belt in kickboxing and does Krav Maga (self-defense), freerunning, and rollerblading.

A flash mob cheers up travelers on the Jerusalem light railway. After all, it’s the Hebrew month of Adar Sheni and the Jewish festival of Purim is approaching.

The Israel Tech Challenge, a new initiative by The Jewish Agency, will offer young gifted Jewish students in computer science from around the world - among them Ivy League students and employees of companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google - an insider's look at the Startup Nation.

Just over a year ago I reported on IDF Captain Ziv Shilon who lost an arm in a Hamas attack but returned to duty shortly afterwards. I’m pleased to write that he proposed to his girlfriend at a “Friends of the Israel Defense Forces” event in Florida, and she said, “Yes”.