Israel Active

(Thanks to Jacob Richman)  Israel has issued new postage stamps.  Three of them mark the upcoming festival of Simchat Torah (rejoicing of the Torah) by depicting flags waved during the celebrations.

The speakers at the Stockholm pro-Israel rally on Aug 31 included Mostafa Geha, a Muslim Lebanese activist and writer, who co-founded the Lebanon Israel Peace Project.  He says peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon, like those between the biblical Kings Solomon and Hiram, will create an amazing region.

Over the last seven weeks, the Emergency Volunteers Project (EVP) has brought volunteer emergency first responders from various locations in the United States to help out where they were most needed – southern Israel.

Excavations at Tel Kabri, near Nahariya in Northern Israel have revealed a 3,600-year-old palace storeroom full of wine jars.  Two further storerooms will be excavated in 2015 and may provide a glimpse of the agriculture of the Land of Israel at the time that the Israelites entered it.

Israeli archaeologists have discovered a 7000-year-old copper awl in Northern Israel during excavations of Tel Tsaf. It is the oldest known find of a metal object made by humans.

(Thanks to Hazel) In the biggest pro-Israel, anti-terrorist rally in recent years, an estimated 20,000 gathered in Kolkata, India in a show of solidarity with Israel.

Lone soldiers leave their Diaspora homes to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Most men become combat soldiers. Some women also fight in combat, while most serve as instructors in army technology, or deal with the press and plan missions that hopefully will never need to be carried out.

Israeli children are foregoing their summer vacation plans in favor of helping children in the bomb shelters in Ashdod, helping senior citizens, volunteering at hospitals, contributing to public diplomacy and collecting care packages for the soldiers on the front.

A hoard of coins from the fourth year of the Jewish Revolt against Rome - minted months before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE – was unearthed during the expansion of Route 1, the major highway connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Observant Israeli farmers may be making the desert bloom, but every 7 years they must let the land of Israel rest. So in the months before the Jewish New Year it is a very busy time. Here is what Shoshana and Yoni Rappeport have been doing in their Argan tree plantation.