This has been an interesting week, on Monday evening we hosted a group of Bridges for Peace Leaders, some like Rev. Rebecca Brimmer, president, CEO and Editor in Chief of BFP and her tour-guide husband, Tom, (old friends of ours) Cheryl  Hauer, the International Development Director and Daniel Kirchevel,  from the Jerusalem office who helped to co-ordinate the hosting evening, are all resident in Jerusalem. With them, we hosted Keith Buxton, the BFP National Director from Australia and the Canadian national Director, Eric Malloy.  All delightful people and amazingly well- informed about Israel and Judaism. The remainder of this group of over thirty were hosted by other families in Jerusalem, including our friend Jim Solberg the International Director for America.  For those who don’t know, Bridges for Peace is a “Jerusalem –based, Bible-believing  Christian organization supporting  Israel and building relationships between Christians and Jews worldwide through education and practical deeds expressing G-d’s love and mercy.”  BFP gives a great deal of financial help to Israel both to various projects and to needy families through their food bank and other sources. Before you ask, no, they definitely do not have ulterior motives and are not interested in converting us all to Christianity.

Shabbat evening we were delighted to receive a visit from our old friend, Canon Andrew White, now more usually known as The Bishop of Baghdad, who has been away from Israel for far too long, happily, he is again engaged in work here and will, hopefully, be visiting Israel more regularly. Just before writing this, we received the news that this morning he has become extremely ill (Andrew suffers from Multiple Sclerosis) and was on his way to hospital in Baghdad, he needs all our prayers for his speedy recovery.

On Wednesday we spent the day in Naharia at the Hospital for the Western Galilee in the Opthalmic Department, for Norman to have his second cataract removed  and, as on our previous  visit, were fascinated by the ethnic mix of patients, ranging from ultra-orthodox Jews to Arabs in various traditional garbs, (none of the women with their faced covered, I am happy to report) also many Druze, the men in their unusual loose trousers and tall white hats and various other religious ‘uniforms’ that we were unable to place.  During the Lebanon War, we were told that the hospital received a direct hit from a rocket which destroyed the Ophthalmic Unit. Mentioning that we were going to the hospital to Bridges for Peace Director Rebecca Brimmer on Monday, we were amazed to hear that it was BFP money that had rebuilt the Opthalmic department after the hospital was severely damaged by a rocket during the Lebanon War. We had not realized just how close we were to the Lebanon border until we looked out onto the foothills from the windows of the ward.

NEWS ABOUT ISRAEL THAT YOU ARE UNLIKELY TO FIND IN THE MEDIA

·         A schoolroom desk that is light enough to be carried by two children but offers protection against earthquakes has been designed as a final project by students at Israel’s prestigious Bezalel  Academy of Arts and Design’s industrial design programme.  The desk is made of standard metals that are welded together in such a way that would enable the desks to be manufactured at a relatively low cost.  The design is competing for the 2012 Brit Insurance Designs of the Year award.
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  Design duo Arthur Brutter and Ido Bruno

(De Zeen Magazine)

·         We have never thought Israel to be sufficiently ecologically aware when it comes to the recycling of waste products.  We are therefore delighted with recent developments in our Jerusalem suburb of Gilo.  For some years we did have in our road, a very ugly container for plastic bottles which are recycled into garden furniture.  This has now been replaced with a much more attractive one and a second placed at the other end of the road. We have also acquired containers for newspapers, at both ends of the road and now a huge one has appeared near to the ‘makolet’ (grocery shop) for the disposal of all kinds of cardboard cartons.  Things are looking up and we are pleased to see that our neighbours are making very good use of all of these which are full to overflowing by the time they are due to be emptied.  Glass bottles can be returned to the shops and one receives a very small cash reward for doing so but  Israelis still have to learn not to take so many plastic bags at supermarket checkouts but here again, there is an improvement with more and more people taking their own reusable cloth bags out shopping with them.   We now hopefully await containers for other waste products such as used batteries, leather goods etc. as we have seen on visits to the U.K.

·          For the third time in three days Israeli border police have caught Palestinians trying to sneak pipe bombs into Israel, on this occasion it was three bombs.  There have been four separate attempts by Palestinians to get bombs into Israel in the last month.  On May 4^th two Palestinians were arrested trying to enter Israel with backpacks full of bombs and knives.  We are eternally thankful for our vigilant border police. (Taken from The Times of Israel)

·         Among the 120 soldiers honoured for excellence by president Shimon Peres on Israel’s Independence Day was an Arab living in East Jerusalem.  As far as he knows, up to now, he has been the only East Jerusalem Arab serving in the Israeli army.  Only a very few of his family members know about his army service and he never takes his uniform home with him.  “I wanted to serve, I wanted to defend the country, I wanted to serve in order to do something good and something good with my life,” he is quoted as saying. He serves in a Bedouin unit and has been certified as an army medic, it is a matter of great pride to him that now two of his brothers have chosen to follow in his footsteps and have also been drafted into the Israeli army. He hopes to continue his studies, possibly through the army’s higher education programme and one day, become a doctor. Before that, he is looking forward to serving as a role-model for his brothers and helping them through the difficulties of being a soldier in secret.  (The Jerusalem Post)

·         Millions of asthma sufferers can breathe a bit easier thanks to a number of research products coming out of Israel.  These include Or-Akiva’s  Deep Breeze which can be used in hospitals and at home for non-invasive treatment of asthma patients.  There is a portable Personal Wheezeometer from Karmel  Sonix Ltd. which can monitor and store breathing data to detect nocturnal and exercise induced asthma and a new, ‘green’ inhaler from Teva Pharmaceuticals.  Salt rooms can be of enormous help to asthma sufferers and Israel boasts a number of these and is the only country in the world where treatment can be received through national health insurance plans.  (Go to Israel 21C to read more about this subject and other Israeli medical innovations.)