Staying Put in the Golan

{image_1}The possibility of war remains a great concern for Israeli political and military leaders as well as residents of the Golan Heights. Evidence of increased tensions in the North have been felt near the Mt. Avital Israel Defense Forces (IDF) base just opposite the cease-fire line with Syria. Israeli jet fighters and Apache helicopters have been heard overhead patrolling the skies. An IDF combat engineer unit has been preparing for maneuvers for months. However, very few tanks or other heavy military equipment have been seen.

Byzantine Church Discovered in Tiberias

{image_1}Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) excavations in Tiberias have exposed a Byzantine church (fourth to fifth centuries AD) paved with polychrome mosaics and decorated with geometric patterns, crosses, and dedicatory inscriptions.

A Pollution Solution

{image_1}A wadi (stream), polluted by solid waste, runs between two municipalities (East Baka in the West Bank and West Baka in Israel) 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Tulkarem and separated by the Green Line and the security barrier. The polluted wadi has actually brought the two sides together. Both mayors have signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to protect and beautify the wadi, hoping it will eventually become a recreational area.

Autistic Children get a “BioHug”

{image_1}An Israeli engineer and father of a son with autism, Raffi Rembrand devoured all the information about the treatment of deep pressure touch to produce a calming effect in agitated individuals with autism. However, he discovered that most existing devices were more like straitjackets, weren’t sensitive to changes in the patient’s movement, and couldn’t regulate the pressure based on the patient’s needs or body gauges.

Vitamins Straight to Your Skin

{image_1}Tagra Biotechnologies has developed a microencapsulation system that delivers active materials to the skin when they are needed. This is the brave new world of skincare and also has applications for the dental and pharmaceutical industries.

New Arrivals Come to Fight!

{image_1}“Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!…Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom He has redeemed…and gathered out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south” (Psalm 107:1–3). In August, 27 American youths came to Israel to enlist in the army. They were among 210 new immigrants from North America, who were greeted at Ben Gurion Airport by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Their flight was the third of 15 planned this past summer by Nefesh B’Nefesh, who announced that 3,200 will arrive from the United States and Canada this year.

What’s an etrog?

{image_1}Etrog is Hebrew for citron, but what’s a citron? It is not a mystery in Israel, but it is for most of the world. An etrog is a lemon-like fruit, not commonly eaten by Israelis, but used during the harvest festival of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees [citron], branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days” (Lev. 23:40). The citron and lulav (branches) are waved before the Lord to the east, west, south, and north, up and down, acknowledging that God is everywhere.

Meeting God in Shiloh

{image_1}“Now the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of meeting there. And the land was subdued before them.” Joshua 18:1

New Finds at Ramat Rachel

{image_1}The third season of renewed excavations at Ramat Rachel––a kibbutz (communal settlement) and popular conference center southeast of Jerusalem’s city center––has come to a close with several exceptional finds, including a piece of a proto-Ionic (or proto-Aeolic) capital from the Iron Age (seventh to sixth centuries BC). To date, only 12 such capitals have been found in Judea, with one from the City of David in Jerusalem and now 11 from Ramat Rachel. The proto-Ionic capital was also used on seals in the Early Iron Age before writing in the Israelite kingdom and can be seen today on the back of the five-shekel coin.

Bombs in Strange Places

{image_1}In August, Israeli army units operating in the village of Salim, near the West Bank Palestinian city of Nablus (Shechem, Samaria), discovered a 22-lb (10-kg) bomb hidden inside the carcass of a lamb. Similar bombs were also found packed inside an old car battery and a gas cylinder. All these terrorist devices were safely diffused by sappers.

Unsupervised Digging on the Temple Mount

{image_1}During the summer, Arab workers began extensive work on the Temple Mount itself, with hardly a mention hitting the press. Workers dug a two-foot deep trench running the length from the northern part of the platform, where the golden Dome of the Rock Mosque is located, to the southern end of the Temple Mount complex. The work was to lay new telephone and cable lines. While the police sanctioned the work, there was no archaeological supervision, meaning that the extent of the damage done to any antiquities is unknown.

Producing Electricity with…Balloons?

{image_1}Joseph Cory, an Israeli scientist at Haifa’s Technion Israel Institute of Technology, has developed a new way to produce electricity using helium balloons made from fabric coated with photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. These balloons are much cheaper to build and install than existing solar panels and also take up far less room, a significant factor in an urban environment.

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