Dispatch from Jerusalem

UN Bias Against Israel!

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It is amazing how quickly some choose to blame Israel and how sooner or later the accusations have to be withdrawn. In January, an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council joined with ambassadors from the world’s dictatorships, and even some democracies, to attack Israel for targeting a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school.

Turkish Jews Fearful

{image_1} A Jewish woman living in Istanbul writes of difficulties faced by Jews following rising anti-Semitism in Turkey in wake of Gaza op.

“Me and my friends in the Jewish community in Istanbul are scared to give out our names these days, fearing it might hurt us. We don’t want to be identified as Jews.

After the Gaza War

{image_1} “For the Palestinian people, death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land; the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly [Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly, and Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy, ‘We desire death as you desire life.’”

—Fathi Hamad, Hamas representative, as broadcast on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV prior to the conflict

Surprising Admission

{image_1} “What will happen in the future, we shall not repeat the wrongs we did in leaving Gaza. It should have been done otherwise. I was for leaving Gaza. I feel myself as one of the persons mistaken…My problem is less whom to entrust with the role of prime minister but rather the candidate’s policies. The world is undergoing new situations and the new government must adjust its policies accordingly. I do not disqualify any Israeli who was duly elected.”

Piston-less car gets 100 MPG!

{image_1} Electric cars offer promise, but switching over still has limits. An entirely new solution may come by way of an Israeli company—Agam Energy Systems—which has developed a piston-less turbine engine, featuring a new kind of compressor. American automakers are already taking notice, the company reports.

Turning Olive Waste into Fuel

{image_1} In the shadow of Herodion (Herod’s conical fortress palace southeast of Bethlehem), a group of youngsters—many of whom were homeless until they were gathered together by a man named Yossi Sadeh—are changing the face of energy production. Their work is to help create Olivebar rolls to heat homes in wood-burning stoves, which General Manager Eli Karniel describes as “ecologically perfect.”

A “Snake” Performs Surgery

{image_1} While Israel’s Dr. Alon Wolf was working as a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in America, he—along with his American colleague Professor Howie Choset and Italian Professor Marco Zenati—designed CardioARM, a robotic snake small enough, strong enough, and flexible enough to fit inside the human body. “It cuts down the need for any ‘open’ surgery,” explains Wolf, now based at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

Israeli Medical Center for Gazans Opens

{image_1} The complicated reality of Israel’s never ending state of war is that it tears down with one hand and builds up with the other. The hope being that, at the end of the day, positive efforts will outweigh negative ones. And so, in the wake of a ceasefire that went into effect at 2 a.m. January 18, Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) opened a medical center at the Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel to serve Gaza Strip citizens.

The Story of God’s Deliverance—Pesach

{image_1} Pesach (Passover) is one of three pilgrimage festivals during which all the men of Israel are to come up to Jerusalem. The other two are Shavuot (Pentecost) and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). Celebrated on the Hebrew month of Nisan 14–21 (generally in April), Pesach is an eight-day holiday remembering the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt. Unlike most of the biblical feasts, Pesach is celebrated primarily in the home with friends and family, not in a synagogue. At least 98% of Israeli Jews participate, to some degree, in Pesach, celebrating God’s protection and provision. It’s a popular time for Jews from the nations to visit Israel, and many Israeli families take week-long vacations.

The Story of God’s Deliverance—Pesach

{image_1} Pesach (Passover) is one of three pilgrimage festivals during which all the men of Israel are to come up to Jerusalem. The other two are Shavuot (Pentecost) and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). Celebrated on the Hebrew month of Nisan 14–21 (generally in April), Pesach is an eight-day holiday remembering the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt. Unlike most of the biblical feasts, Pesach is celebrated primarily in the home with friends and family, not in a synagogue. At least 98% of Israeli Jews participate, to some degree, in Pesach, celebrating God’s protection and provision. It’s a popular time for Jews from the nations to visit Israel, and many Israeli families take week-long vacations.