Israel Arrests Palestinians in Jericho Jail as Western Monitors Slip Away by Steven Erlanger and Greg Myre

Israeli military forces besieged a Palestinian prison in Jericho for 10 hours on Tuesday before seizing six Palestinian inmates. The men - five of whom were wanted in the assassination of Rehavam Zeevi (pictured), the Israeli tourism minister, in 2001 - had been held for four years in an unusual arrangement that involved the U.S. and Britain. Palestinian leaders had hinted recently at freeing them.

The Israeli military charged into Jericho soon after British monitors left the prison on Tuesday morning. British and American monitors had been keeping watch since 2002 over the Palestinian inmates but the monitors left because they felt at risk. Bush administration officials declined to comment on the Israeli action, but they were barely restrained in their criticism of the Palestinian Authority. American and British officials said they had been warning the Palestinians for months that security conditions at the jail were so lax as to be dangerous. On March 8 the two governments sent a joint letter threatening to remove their monitors if security did not improve. No date was given. (New York Times)

Israeli Diplomats Cast Ballots

As many as 800 Israeli diplomats and state employees will vote Thursday at the Israeli Consulate in New York City. Similar balloting will take place in 92 Israeli missions worldwide, ahead of Israel's March 28 general elections. The sealed ballot boxes will be returned to Israel for counting. (JTA)

Mishloach Manot Brings Comfort, Smiles and Pride
by Wendy Margolin

On Purim when soldiers serving in the Israel Defense Forces are away from their families and communities, receiving a gift-wrapped package of food can be the most important part of celebrating the holiday. Two Chicago organizations ensure that thousands of soldiers receive mishloach manot, Purim packages of food.

Mishloach Manot, sending gifts of food, is one of four mitzvot specific to Purim. On the morning of the holiday, celebrants bustle around town visiting friends and delivering tasty treats. It is a day to reach out to embrace fellow Jews – irrespective of any religious or social differences.

The Chicago chapter of American Zionist Movement began sending Purim packages to soldiers serving on the Lebanese border 18 years ago. Linda Harth, executive director, says that five years ago that program became so big that it became a national project. With donations as small as $5, the project that once sent $600-$700 worth of mishloach manot expanded to $20,000 or more in recent years.

Packages often include letters from contributors. Harth already received letters from students at Solomon Schechter Day School of Metropolitan Chicago and Ezra Habonim religious school. She expects a package from Hillel Torah North Suburban Day School as well.

Last year, the organization also sent mishloach manot to children in Sderot schools, a city that was (and continues to be) terrorized by rockets from Gaza. This year, recipients will include children displaced from Gaza.

Rabbi Yishai Broner, executive director of Kollel Torah MiTzion, initiated a program to "Thank the Soldiers" three years ago. He coordinates with IDF Brigade Commander Bentzi Gruber to distribute gifts on Purim day. "The knowledge that that there are caring Jews on the other side of the ocean who understand the importance of our mission in the IDF warms our hearts," says Gruber. (Chicago Jewish Community Online)

Baltimore School Brings Polish Torah 'Home' to Israel
by Elana Brownstein

Its sections torn, letters faded and parchment soiled, this Torah scroll was entirely unfit for use. The scroll, thought by scholars to have been written in Poland in the early part of the 20th century, survived the Holocaust and found sanctuary at the Randallstown Synagogue in Baltimore, Maryland for several decades.

The scroll's fate, however, seemed sealed when the congregation shut down in 2003, and the defunct synagogue couldn't donate it because it was too costly to first repair.

But an article in The Jerusalem Post last summer about an effort by the Jerusalem-based Chaim Veshalom Hatzola organization to provide every Border Police base with its own Torah spurred an intensive effort to painstakingly repair the scroll and bring it to Israel.

Last week, a delegation of 77 U.S. high school seniors brought the Torah to Israel, via Poland, and marched proudly to the Western Wall with the scroll. It was donated to the Border Police.

"It was amazing to be with the Torah for my first time at the Kotel," said Jessica 17, on her first visit to Israel. "Finally, we both get to be at home."

After reading the Post article, the former president of the Randallstown congregation felt compelled to find a way to save the scroll. Students at the Baltimore-area Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School embraced the mission. The project was adopted by the senior class, who, with the help of the entire school, raised the more than $6,000 needed to refurbish the scroll.

"Everyone in the school participated in some way, from pre-school students to high school students," said Zipora Schorr, the school's director of education. She described the emotional convocation ceremony (pictured) that took place before the departure of the senior class for Israel. "The kids marched under the huppa with the Torah, singing, 'From Zion came the Torah,' and now we're sending it back to Zion. What could be better?" she asked. (Jerusalem Post)

Israel and Jewish Organizations Help to Eradicate Poverty in Africa

As part of the international community's effort to eradicate poverty, the State of Israel and American-Jewish organizations have contributed $118,000 to assist the starving in Africa. Israel has decided that the funds donated will be distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP) to the countries of Mauritania, Malawi and Kenya.

Israel was among the first countries to respond positively to the appeals of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Head of the World Food Programme which were directed to the Foreign Minister. At the same time, Jewish organizations in the United States responded positively to Israel's appeal, and enlisted to provide joint humanitarian assistance. The Jewish organizations are: UJA - Federation of New York, American Jewish Committee, United Jewish Communities of Metro West (NJ), UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey.

The decision to allot the donations to the aforementioned three countries was based upon the joint assessment of Israel and the UN, since the countries are located in a region which has the most pressing humanitarian needs.

The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has prioritized the eradication of poverty and hunger, as part of the UN Millennium Development Goals. The UN has therefore expressed its appreciation to the State of Israel, which together with the American-Jewish organizations, confronted one of the most pressing issues on the UN agenda - starvation in Africa.

Israel's readiness to share its experience and know-how, and its contribution to the UN Millennium Development Goals, reflect the importance it attaches to its enlistment in humanitarian activities which top the international community's agenda. (New York Jewish Times)

Campaign on Behalf of Jews From Arab Lands

14 different Jewish communities in countries around the world are undertaking international advocacy campaign this month to bring the rights of Jewish expellees from Arab lands into the public eye and before world leaders. The month will also see an intensified effort to catalogue losses suffered by the Jews expelled from Arab states. Generating the idea for the campaign were the World Association of Jews from Arab Countries (WOJAC), in association with Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC).

A JJAC spokesman said that two-thirds of the Jewish refugees from Arab states and their offspring live in Israel, where the ministry of justice has created a database to collect testimony of refugees and document the assets they were forced to leave behind. So far, Israeli officials have collected the case histories of some 3,000 families.

As part of the effort, the Canadian Jewish Congress will be pushing for a Canadian government statement in the House of Commons on Jewish refugees. In June 2005, then-Prime Minister Paul Martin acknowledged in an interview that as many as 850,000 Jews fled Arab or Muslim countries and that Jewish refugees claims should be taken into consideration. (Israel National News)

With Friends Like These... by Bryan Schwartzman

Wearing olive-green T-shirts bearing the insignia of the Israeli Defense Forces, roughly 50 students at the Abington Friends School (PA) staged a protest last week against what they claim is the Quaker institution's uneven enforcement of a policy that bars students from wearing military attire. Organizers of the protest said that they frequently have been asked to remove or turn inside-out their IDF T-shirts while their classmates have no trouble sporting cultural icons such as Che Guevara, the Argentine-born Communist revolutionary who fought in Fidel Castro's military coup in Cuba, and attempted to violently overthrow regimes in the Congo and Bolivia.

But the students also spoke of an entrenched anti-Israel sentiment among the school's faculty and students. "Teachers dispute that Israel is even a state," said 18-year-old Elizabeth Silow. The protesters - the great majority of whom were drawn from the student body's sizable Jewish population - took to the stage in the school auditorium on Thursday at the close of morning assembly. They met no resistance from faculty, who had been told ahead of time that the demonstration would take place.

"We first and foremost would like to acknowledge that our Israeli Defense Forces clothing breaks the school's current dress-code. This is indisputable," said Ayal Feinberg, 17, reading from a prepared statement after a teacher encouraged the high school senior to speak louder.

"What is also incontrovertible," continued Feinberg, "is the discrimination students with vocal pro-Israel views receive constantly and consistently in our community." Immediately after he finished reading his page-long statement, several faculty members invited the students to a two-hour talk session to discuss the issues.

The administrators said in a statement to the school assembly on Friday that they planned to examine how the dress code was enforced, as well as establish a student-faculty subcommittee to look at a perceived anti-Israel bias on campus. A program on the Middle East is also in the works. (Jewish Exponent)

Israel's 'Superwoman' Takes Flight to Help Others by Jenny Hazan

Since founding the non-profit disaster relief organization, Israeli Flying Aid (IFA), a year ago, Gal Lusky and her team of volunteers have provided assistance to victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2005, and more recently to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Lusky (pictured, right) and members of her team - comprised of 60 volunteers from a variety of professions including doctors, psychologists, and social workers - have also paid visits to the flood victims of Georgia and the earthquake victims of India and Kashmir.

The former flight attendant founded the IFA non-profit disaster relief organization a year ago with a single objective: to make the world a better place. "I believe in spreading goodness around, and in helping people," Lusky told ISRAEL21c. "I will go to the end of the world to do it."

Lusky means what she says. Unlike other aid organizations, the IFA targets people in far-flung locations around the globe that were either intentionally or unintentionally overlooked by most government or international aid organizations, to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to people affected by either natural disaster or regional conflict.

The IFA does not discriminate between disaster victims, based on their race, religion, the hostility of their governments toward Israel, and not even in the face of anti-Semitism. "I am very proud of my country, and if I can come with its flag, I will," says Lusky, who explains that the organization's insignia - a Star of David with wings - was designed to show pride in being Israeli. (Israel21c)

Youth "On Front Stage" Pave the Way to Stories from the Bible in Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plains

300 youth from the yeshivot and ulpanot in the Beit Shemesh Region are participating in the renovation of local Biblical sites as part of the "On Front Stage" project of Partnership 2000 through the Jewish Agency and in partnership with the JNF. The project exposes local high school students to cultural and artistic productions in Israel in order to enrich their cultural experience and expand their horizons.

During the 2005-6 school year, some 2100 grade 8-10 students from ten high schools in the Region will attend five high-quality performances of various types: art, dance, theater, film, movement and music. In addition to its cultural value, the project also attempts to instill values of volunteerism and social activism on behalf of the community. In each of the ten high schools, the youth, together with the school's educational staff and Tamar Rosh, the Director of the "On Front Stage" project, decided on a social/environmental project that they will carry out during the year. (Jewish Agency for Israel)

Debra Applebaum's Legacy of Love: Taking up Causes Dear to Hearts of her Slain Husband, Daughter by Susan H. Kahn

On Sept. 9, 2003, Dr. David Applebaum met his 20-year-old daughter Naava (pictured) at Café Hillel in Jerusalem for coffee and conversation; it was the eve of her wedding. While they were having their quiet heart-to-heart, a suicide bomber entered the café and blew himself up, killing seven people, David and Naava among them.

In one devastating moment, these two talented, hardworking, beloved family members were gone. How does one cope with such a loss? Debra Applebaum, the mother of five, finds solace through her involvement in causes that her late husband and daughter held dear. "I support things that connect me to David and Naava," says the soft-spoken widow. "It is somewhat therapeutic."

Applebaum was in Cleveland last week raising funds for Zichron Menachem. While reticent about her personal life, she is passionate on the topic of the unique organization to which her daughter was so dedicated. Volunteers like Naava work in the hospital, in patients' homes, and in the lovely new ZM Day Center, she explains. They tutor kids, accompany them when they go for treatment, plan birthday parties, take them on trips and outings. For the young cancer patients, they are friends and confidantes. For overwhelmed and exhausted parents, the Sherut Leumi [national service] girls are the extra set of hands, someone to help with household tasks and childcare.

"This is emotionally difficult work," says Applebaum. "Naava would talk to my husband a lot about medical issues that arose and situations that were difficult."

One of ZM's most ambitious programs is its adventure camp. Accompanied by the dedicated volunteers, medical personnel and a mobile hospital unit, young patients are treated to trips to Eilat, Mt. Hebron and Holland. In addition, numerous educational and recreational activities go on year-round at the ZM day center, including a club for teens now named Naava's club. (Cleveland Jewish News)

[Editor's note: Planning to cut your long hair before the summer? ZM will take hair donations and make them into wigs for young cancer patients. Click for details]

Music With a Message by Nathan Burstein

Music fans will have an opportunity to send Israel's first Arab representative to the Eurovision Song Contest following TV broadcast of "Kdam Eurovision," the preliminary competition in which aspiring contestants showcase new songs for appraisal by the public. Lubna Salame (pictured, right), a Christian Arab from the western Galilee, is set to take the stage alongside Jewish musicians Shlomo Gronich (left) and Michal Adler (center) to perform "Mother Earth," a song she hopes will inspire Israelis of all backgrounds to work for peace.

With its call for listeners to "use your heart, that's what it's for," "Mother Earth" is slated first among the 11 songs to be performed as part of the competition. The product of more than five years of artistic collaboration between Salame and Gronich, "Mother Earth" is an unconventional submission not only because of its multi-ethnic performers, but because of its message and music as well. With poetic imagery and a hopeful promise that "your children won't again be sent to war," the song involves neither the throw-away lyrics nor the effusive cheeriness of most Eurovision submissions, which are often accompanied by flashy dance numbers and eye-catching costumes.

Performed in Arabic, Hebrew and English, "Mother Earth" features a solemn singing style and is enhanced not by a synthetic beat, but with an orchestral background embellished by flourishes on the harmonica played by Adler. The song is the latest in a series of co-existence efforts by Salame and Gronich, who first recorded together at the start of the second intifada in hopes of stemming violence and encouraging dialogue between Israeli Jews and Arabs. The pair joined forces repeatedly in the intervening years, notably in 2005 with the creation of Adamai, an ensemble of Arab and Jewish musicians put together through Peace Child Israel, a dialogue and co-existence organization based in Tel Aviv. (Jerusalem Post)

Click to hear the Eurovision songs

[Editor's note: As we went to press, the Kdam Eurovision was won by Eddie Butler, a 34-year-old singer from Dimona, Israel, and the son of Americans from Chicago.]

Sharon Stone Plants a Tree in Israel

On a perfect spring day in Jerusalem, when the fruit trees were in full bloom on the way to the John F. Kennedy Memorial located in the Jerusalem Hills, Sharon Stone arrived. "It's a big honor to be here," she said.

Walking around the perimeter of the Memorial, designed as a tree stump to convey the president's untimely death with 51 pillars representing one of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, she stopped by two pillars to be photographed: Pennsylvania where she was born and California, where she now lives.

At the tree planting site Stone read the Tree Planter's Prayer herself. Offered a hoe to help her plant, she refused and said that "she was a country girl and wanted to touch the land with her hands and feet." She took off her sandals and quickly knelt down using her hands to plant the tree. "I do this for love," she said. "You can tell that I am a farm girl."

Deeply moved, she had tears in her eyes and trouble speaking. "Thank you," she said haltingly, as she watered her tree. "How grateful I am to come here in peace and for peace. In the name of my sons, Roan and Laird, and with love and desire for peace and joy, I plant and water these trees." (Jewish National Fund)

Recent New York Delegations to Jerusalem

Three different groups from New York recently visited their counter-partners in Jerusalem.

Fourteen teenagers from the Mid Island Y and the East Talpiyot Matnas, who are a part of the "Crossing Borders, Young Ambassadors" program, came to realize it's probably the last time they will see each other, as a group, since the project is coming to an end (a new group has started to work these days). They were heartbroken and had decided, in order to try and prevent this outcome, to approach the UJA office and ask for further funding and continuation of their program. In the end, the group came during the Hanukkah holiday and had a wonderful time.

It was the first time 10 teens from the Rodef Shalom Congregation met up with 10 teenagers from their partner Congregation, Kol Haneshama. It was astonishing to see how quickly personal connections were formed. The two groups met during the week with different organizations which deal with promoting tolerance between diverse groups and began to discuss their "Tikun Olam" project that they will operate together. The members of the Israeli group are now looking forward and preparing them self for their visit in New York in April.

The third group to visit Israel was comprised of six students from the "Hillel at Baruch College and Hunter College" which met with six students from the "Hillel program" from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The two groups have formed a joint committee whose role is to grant projects dealing with Jewish Identity, given in by students from both universities. (Jewish Agency for Israel)

Quarterback Tom Brady Wraps Up Trip to Israel by Avi Creditor

Two-time Super Bowl MVP and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady left Israel Saturday night after spending nearly a week in the country on a Combined Jewish Philanthropies leadership mission led in part by Patriots owner Robert Kraft (pictured, left) and his wife, Myra.

Brady (pictured, right) traveled the country with the Krafts and the rest of the mission, including visiting Masada and eating Friday night dinner at the King David Hotel, where he donned a kippa, not quite the helmet that he's used to wearing on his head.

Brady's stay in Jerusalem ended Saturday after he spoke to the mission at the Israel Museum about what he had learned and what he loved about the trip - including humous - before heading to the airport. "It was wonderful," Brady said. "Hopefully you guys took as much out of it as I did. I'm going back, and I think it's important to go back and leave here not only realizing how special [Israel] is, but also to share it with other people." (Jerusalem Post)

1.2 Million Israeli Households Connected to Internet by Guy Hadass

1.2 million Israeli households had an Internet hook-up at the end of 2005, 9% more than in 2004, according to a Business Data Israel survey. BDI also found that the proportion of households with a high-speed Internet hook-up is one of the highest in the world - 45% of all households in 2005. (Globes)

A 'Fantastic Voyage' Into Your GI Tract by Andrew Romano

Gastroenterology has always been high on grossness and low on glamour, but you'd never know from visiting the Manhattan offices of Dr. James Aisenberg. Tonight's feature presentation on a PC screen: a full-color video of the reporter's empretzeled innards-from gullet to gut to small intestine. Eight hours earlier, he'd swallowed a bullet-size capsule - the PillCam - packed with a tiny blinking camera set to transmit two photos per second to a wearable hard drive.

"This is the sexiest technology imaginable," Aisenberg says of the device, which he's used to detect digestive-tract ailments in more than 400 patients. "It's 'Fantastic Voyage'-and it's changed gastroenterology as much as any single breakthrough in the past 10 years."

The Given Imaging company - an Israeli start-up - offer physicians like Aisenberg the PillCam, and more than 260,000 patients have been served worldwide. As a top engineer for the Israeli Defense Forces, founder Gavriel Iddan designed a pioneering missile with a TV camera in its tip. It wasn't much of a leap to the PillCam. "Our military engineers have to be the best," says Given CEO (and former IDF major) Gavriel Meron. "But these creative minds don't want to deal with war - and that's why guys making missiles are thinking about gastroenterology."

It's paid off. Over the past decade, Israel's life-science industry has grown by more than 16 percent annually (to $1 billion); Israelis now hold the most medical-device patents per capita in the world. (Newsweek)

Guinness Record for Israeli Hummus

New York-based Sabra Foods, owned by the Israeli company, Strauss-Elite, has broken a world record with its display of a plate of hummus 3.5 meters (more than 11 feet) in diameter. Sabra is a distributor of spreads and Middle-Eastern foods in the east coast and Europe. Company president Yehudah Pearl said the task was not an easy one. "Our chefs grinded the hummus for two days to prepare a sufficient amount," he said. "They worked all day."

The publicity stunt was aimed at expanding Sabra's market share and make hummus more widespread in America. "Hummus is an international food product; it crosses the boundaries of the Middle East," Pearl said. "We tried to prepare a recipe that would appeal to everyone; thank God we succeeded." (Reuters/Ynet News)

Next Door to Prada and Armani by Gal Karniel

"The only clothes I buy are jeans and sweatpants, that's how I satisfy my shopping urges," says designer Sigal Dekel, the owner of the first Israeli fashion house to open a store in New York. The store opened two weeks on Spring Street in Manhattan, next door to such brand names as Prada, Giorgio Armani and Chanel. Dekel is no stranger to New York, where she apprenticed at Carolina Herrera.

Dekel opened her first store, in Tel Aviv's Neveh Tzedek neighborhood, four years ago. "In Israel, people are open and want to experiment; there is daring, even if the clothes appear grotesque," she says. "Overseas, the women are more conservative."

However, given the success of collections she has been selling for three years in boutiques in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and New York, Dekel believes that American women will also want to experiment with the more daring lines of her collections.

"Good design is connected to the place the designer comes from," she says. "It is faithful to itself and to the designer's handwriting. Israeli design is unique due to its connection to Levantine style."

The New York store, which sprawls across a 100-square meter space and required a $400,000 investment, was designed by Ida Gafni Sarig and is jointly owned by Dekel and a local franchisee. An American sales staff trained by Israelis will manage the store. (Ha'aretz)

Project Baseball - Bringing America's Pastime to Israel

In a groundbreaking effort to bring the joys of America's pastime to Israel, Jewish National Fund (JNF) has partnered with the Israel Baseball League to dot Israel's landscape with community baseball fields and provide a place for every Israeli to enjoy the sport.

"To me, the game of baseball is the greatest game on earth," said Larry Baras, a Massachusetts resident who founded the Israel Baseball League, an organization dedicated to promoting and developing baseball in Israel. "It embodies the values of patience, sportsmanship, teamwork, and interdependence. The baseball field can be a meeting place for people of different ages, nationalities, genders and religions."

In Jerusalem, where baseball's popularity is the greatest, the main field is little more than an empty lot filled with dust, rocks, and thorns. In Bet Shemesh, the only baseball field is built on a slope, forcing the 250 children in the local youth league to run uphill as they head towards first base. In Tel Aviv, players rush to their positions between innings because there are no lights on the field and all play must end at dusk. Haifa, Be'er Sheva, and Tiberias have interested players but no baseball fields at all.

JNF will build new fields throughout Israel and improve or replace makeshift ones so that each city will eventually have its own baseball field. Construction will be done with great attention to Israel's unique environmental concerns, including its severe water shortage. All fields will be covered with synthetic turf to avoid the need for constant watering, and catch basins will be installed beneath the turf wherever possible to collect rainfall.

As part of its mission to promote baseball in Israel, the Israel Baseball League will host a two-week baseball camp in July run by professional instructors and former Major League players, and has also begun to recruit players to compete on the women's softball team in the 2008 Summer Olympics. The IBL hopes to eventually establish a professional baseball league in Israel. (Jewish National Fund)

The Ghost of Purim Past by Jeffrey Goldberg

Three years ago, while visiting Tehran, I was introduced to a charmless man named Muhammad Ali Samadi, who, I was told, would parse for me the Iranian theocracy's peculiar understanding of Judaism and Zionism. Samadi said that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, held no brief for anti-Semitism. Then, a moment later, he explained the role of Jews in history. "There are always infections and diseases in man," he said. "In the world there is an infection called international Jewry."

A great many people, in Iran and beyond, believe that the Jewish state is a cancer, and it is foolish to believe that this is an idea without consequences. As one Islamic Jihad leader told me not long ago, "Everyone knows that the cure for cancer is radiation." (New York Times)

In No Uncertain Terms by Mortimer B. Zuckerman

Just a few days before the Palestinian election, Iran's Ahmadinejad met Hamas' Mashal in Damascus, along with the leaders of nine other Syria-based terrorist groups. The Palestinian conflict, they concluded, will become a "focal point of the final war" between Islam and the West. Hizballah has already moved its operational headquarters from Beirut to Gaza; al-Qaeda elements are already there.

Hamas' election victory, on top of advances by Islamists in Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt, has energized and unified the radicals. This is no longer a political conflict about borders and identity. Militant Islam has declared a religious war in which the destruction of Israel is seen as but the first step in establishing a Muslim caliphate. This wider jihad against the West will either gather momentum and succeed or be confronted and defeated. (U.S. News)

Saving Face for Abbas by Danny Rubinstein

From the moment jailed PFLP leader Ahmed Saadat was elected six weeks ago to the Palestinian parliament, PA Chairman Abbas was put into an impossible position. How dare you hold an elected member of parliament in a Palestinian jail, the masses of Saadat's voters contended. Abbas heard Hamas saying that the moment they formed the government, they would release Saadat, and he understood he could not stop it. (Ha'aretz)