51 Facts About Israel That Will Surprise You

The highs and lows of your AOL Instant Messaging years and the lowest place on Earth have something in common. These tidbits and 49 other facts will have you ReThinking what you thought you knew about Israel.

From BuzzFeed

1. There are over 100 sushi restaurants in Tel Aviv…
2. …making it the city with the most sushi restaurants per capita after Tokyo and NYC.
3. Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship in the world.
4. It has the highest rate of entrepreneurship among women and people over 55 in the world.
5. Israel was the first country to ban underweight models.
6. Israeli banknotes have braille markings on them.
7. Israel won the Eurovision song competition three times.
8. The last time they won, they were represented by a transgender pop star, Dana International. The only other time that’s happened is this year’s winner, Conchita Wurst, from Austria.
9. Israelis consume the third most amount of vegetables and sweets in the world.
10. When Golda Meir became prime minister of Israel in 1969, she was only the third woman elected to lead a country in the modern world.
11. The largest known dog cemetery in the ancient world was discovered in the coastal city of Ashkelon.
12. There’s a rollerblading party that happens every Tuesday night in Tel Aviv.
13. Out Magazine names Israel the gay capital of the Middle East.
14. The country has the most Bauhaus buildings in the world.
15. Israel has 137 official beaches (but only 273 km of coastline).

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At the J Street national summit, wondering what’s next

BDS is still a ‘red line,’ says J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami, who claims his group is ‘squarely in the middle of the conversation’

By Arno Rosenfeld for The Times of Israel

SAN FRANCISCO — At J Street’s national summit, which wrapped up here Sunday night, one question has been front and center: What do advocates for a two-state solution do now?

J Street was founded six years ago with the motto “pro-Israel, pro-peace” to lobby for the American government’s support of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Initially treated as a pariah by many in the organized American Jewish establishment, the group has gained members and legitimacy in recent years. A sign of its arrival in the mainstream came last fall when American vice president Joseph Biden and leaders from across the Israeli political spectrum spoke at its Washington, D.C., conference.

But with the collapse of the latest round of peace talks J Street is being forced to grapple with the future direction of its advocacy, especially as the prospects for a negotiated two-state settlement look increasingly bleak.

“We’ve gone into hibernation,” Daniel Kurtzer, who served as the American ambassador to Israel from 2001-2005, told a crowd of several hundred during the conference’s opening night Saturday. “Everyone has stuck their head into the ground like an ostrich.”

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Jewish Activists Gathering In Budapest To Discuss Balancing Jewish And Global Needs

 

By Mel Fabrikant for The Paramus Post

 

 

 

Between Tribal & Global

Scores of young Jewish social justice and environmental activists from across the globe will come together this month in Budapest to explore the connections between their commitment to supporting the Jewish community and their passion for helping the wider world.

More than 70 young Jewish activists and leaders from Europe, Israel and North America will convene in Budapest June 9-11 for “From Me to We- Between Tribal & Global,” a gathering designed to explore the creative tension between particularism and universalism. Together with an impressive array of thinkers and visionaries, participants will address issues such as balancing community resources between Jewish and global causes and addressing collective Jewish needs without sacrificing global concerns. The gathering will also focus on Jewish identity in the 21st century; the future of Jewish communities; and whether the Jewish people can make a unique impact on the pursuit of a more just and green world.

Selected from a pool of 120 highly qualified applicants, these leading activists will network to create new global partnerships and promote this provocative dialogue in Eastern and Central European Jewish communities. They will also tap into the collective wisdom of the event’s dynamic participants in order to help design event workshops and discussions.

“As the tension between universalism and particularism is as old as the Jewish people itself, we will explore this dilemma to add a deeper layer to the conversation and tie it back to our Jewish heritage and activism,” said Limor Friedman, who with Tamas Buchler organized From Me to We.

“When people hear about the Hungarian Jewish community, they often connect it with the Holocaust and growing anti-Semitism,” added Buchler. “However, beyond these headlines, Budapest is one of the most exciting Jewish communities in Europe: a regional hub for innovation and revival. The "From Me To We" event is an amazing opportunity for our community to get involved in the global Jewish dialogue on social justice.”

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Normandy Kaddish Project

From Jews in Green

On June 6th, the world will pause to remember the hundreds of thousands of troops who fought in the D-Day invasion, including the thousands who gave their lives on the beaches of Normandy.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the invasion and, thanks to the follow through of one man, synagogues across the United States will be remembering the fallen at Normandy in a very special way.
Alan Weinschel, a member of Temple Sinai of Roslyn in New York was inspired on a recent trip to Normandy and the American cemetery at Omaha Beach.

[My wife and I] were there right after the High Holidays. I saw that some of the Magen David [tombstones] had coins and stones placed on top of them, but many others were bare. I know that this was the time of year that people often visit graves of family members. Seeing the empty gravestones triggered something in my mind that had me asking, “who is saying kaddish for these guys?”

When he returned, Alan met with his rabbi, Michael White, and the president of his temple to try and arrange for a community effort to do something to remember these young men at the cemetery. Initially the thought was to arrange for a congregational trip to Normandy to say kaddish at the cemetery, but logistics and costs proved prohibitive for such a large contingent. Despite the setback, the group realized that they could still do something back stateside. Alan asked his rabbi, “We don’t have to be there to say kaddish right? Why can’t we do it here?”

Inspired by the enthusiasm expressed by others about the idea, Alan and Rabbi White reached out to people on the Reformed congregation listserv. The response was incredible. Alan could not recall the exact number of congregations that volunteered to participate, but he assured me it was in the hundreds.

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Rolling Stones Concert In Israel Time Changed For Jewish Fans Observing Shavuot

 By Michelle Chabin for the Huffington Post

(RNS) The Rolling Stones will begin their first concert in Israel 45 minutes later than originally scheduled to accommodate religious Jewish fans.

The Stones’ June 4 Tel Aviv concert was initially set to begin at 8:30 p.m., just minutes after the end of the Shavuot holiday, the Jewish Feast of Weeks, which commemorates Moses receiving the Ten Commandments.

Orthodox Jews do not drive on the Sabbath or holidays, so it would have been impossible for them to arrive at the venue on time. Many of the Stones’ biggest Israeli fans — modern Orthodox baby boomers who moved to Israel from English-speaking countries — had begged the event promoter, Shuki Weiss Promotion and Production, to push forward the starting time.

“Following many requests from the public, particularly the observant public, to delay the starting hour for the performance, the City of Tel Aviv, together with the production team, decided to change the starting time,” the promoter said in a press release.

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Reprint of earlier article from Ben Sales for JTA

 The top 10 Rolling Stones Shavuot songs.

(Props to the Jerusalem Post’s Lahav Harkov for this idea.)

1. Sympathy for the Devil’s Food Cake — We can’t have meat, but at least we can have great dessert.
2. (Don’t) Gimme Shellfish — The laws of kashrut, put to hard rock.
3. Wild Moses — Check out Charlton Heston’s beard in “The Ten Commandments.” Now tell me Moses wasn’t wild.
4. Dairy Tuesday — This one really only works this year.
5. 19th Nervous Breakdown — The song title is the same, but this time it’s about a Jewish mother.
6. Let’s Spend the Night Together… Learning Torah — Probably not what you expected from a Stones song.
7. Holy Talk Woman — Shavuot night at Yeshivat Maharat.
8. It’s Only Lox and Rolls But I Like It — Nothing like a good bagel.
9. Write with Fire – According to legend, God wrote the Ten Commandments with black fire on white fire. Don’t try this at home. 
10. Hey, Jew, Get Off of My Cow – Moses gets angry about the Golden Calf

‘The Jerusalem Post’s’ top 50 most influential Jews of 2014

Welcome to The Jerusalem Post’s annual Shavuot list of the world’s 50 most influential Jews! The point of putting together such a list is to recognize the achievements of our tribe across the world, people who in one way or another have worked tirelessly for the improvement of humanity and, in doing so, have made their mark on history.

Talent and the ability to use it for the greater good are not necessarily Jewish traits, but Jews have certainly contributed enormously in a variety of fields around the globe – not only in Israel.

Before the creation of the Jewish state, in the throes of rampant anti-Semitism and horrors of the Holocaust, it would have been unthinkable to put together such a list. But today, thanks in great part to the strength and stature of Israel and the unprecedented freedom that Jews enjoy in the United States and elsewhere, there has been a Jewish renaissance.

Rising anti-Semitism in Europe is a worrying trend, and it is especially important that prominent Jews with influence in Europe are supported in their struggle against this phenomenon.

Still, it is an indisputable fact that Jews have brought immense value and worth to the family of nations in every conceivable sphere, as evidenced by the inordinate number of Jews who have won Nobel prizes.

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Did a French Comedian Inspire the Killings at the Jewish Museum in Brussels?

Links between Dieudonné, the Belgian anti-Semite Laurent Louis, and Iran show how anti-Semitism is spreading in Europe

By Marc Weitzmann for Tablet Magazine

Immediately after an unknown killer walked into the Jewish museum in Brussels and gunned down four people, the president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, Joël Rubinfeld, made the following statement: “What just happened was foreseeable. It was bound to happen. For the past few years, we witnessed a liberation of anti-Semitic words. It grows up again, most notably through the speeches of both the comedian Dieudonné and the representative Laurent Louis.”

Three hours later, Laurent Louis answered with a very long statement whose rhetoric calls to mind the Nazi answer after the Reichstag burning. He said in substance that blaming him or Dieudonné for the massacre was “too easy.” He had nothing to do with this “fool deed”—“fool” as in not anti-Semitically motivated—and implied that those responsible were to be found among his fiercest enemies, secret organizations who were trying to weaken his party “Stand up Belges!” on the eve of the European elections—the implication, obvious to those familiar with Louis’ national crusade against Israel, being that the Jewish state itself was behind the museum massacre. (Despite the length of his declaration, Louis had not a word for the victims.)

Bu then what was Rubinfeld alluding to? What is the connection between Louis and Dieudonné M’Bala M’bala, the notorious anti-Semitic French comedian? in 2013, Louis briefly enrolled in Parti Islam, a small organization with apparent links to Iran. Dieudonné, on the other hand, is involved in the “anti Zionist party,” which is led by Yahia Gouasmi, a French Shiite imam of Algerian background who claims to have met Khomeini in 1978 during his exile in France. The author Alain Soral has publicly admitted that the “anti-Zionist party,” of which he is a member, had received 3 million euros from Tehran, in order to finance the party’s electoral campaign in the 2009 European parliamentary elections; although the number shrank to 300,000 euros in a second statement that Soral was forced to make, he has never denied receiving large sums of money from Iran.

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