Dispatch from Jerusalem

Hiking in the Desert! An Israeli Experience

{image_1}Did you know that there are thousands of amazing places to hike in Israel? Israel has been called “a trekker’s paradise” with its myriad of established trails. The Israel National Trail, which runs about 600 miles (1,000 km) from the green mountains of northern Galilee to the desert country of Eilat, won a place on National Geographic’s list of twenty of the world’s best hikes. In determining which trails were chosen, the National Geographic said, “We looked for walks that travel deeper into a location’s history and culture.”

An Abundance of Rain

{image_1}Israel is a land that drinks “the rain of heaven.” When the Lord described the Promised Land to Moses, He said: “For the land which you go to possess [is] not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered [it] by foot, as a vegetable garden, but the land which you cross over to possess [is] a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven” (Deut. 11:10–11).

How Does Israel Treat Its Arab Citizens?

{image_1}Israel’s war for independence was a particularly brutal conflict, with the avowed purpose of her attackers being to annihilate the Jewish population and secure the entire country for the Arab population. On May 15, 1948, the day after Israel’s declaration of statehood, the Secretary General of the Arab League declared in a BBC news broadcast: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre that will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

A Light to the Nations—Israel Celebrates Her 65th Birthday

{image_1}When 22-year-old Emmannuel Buso was pulled from the rubble of a building 10 days after an earthquake devastated Haiti, the first faces he saw were those of Israeli rescue workers. For Haji Edum, from Zanzibar, his life-saving moment came twice, when he was flown at age 15, and then again at 23, to Israel for open-heart surgery. He is just one of thousands of youngsters to receive emergency heart care from volunteer doctors in Israel.

Remember—Yizkor

{image_1}The Bible repeatedly emphasizes the need to remember and to pass the knowledge of God and His acts to future generations.

The Hebrew word for remember is Yizkor (literally “you will remember”) and the root is z-k-r (זכר). You will also hear the word zikaron (זיכרון) which is remembrance. This root word in its various forms is found in hundreds of Scripture passages. It means to remember, recall, call to mind, to be brought to remembrance, be remembered, be thought of, be brought to mind, to mention, to record or to make a memorial, or to make remembrance.

Sun’s Power at Work

{image_1}Thousands of years ago, sailors would spread seawater in flat beds aboard ship to let the sun evaporate it to separate out the salt. The same principle is behind a modern Israeli technology that relies on sun power to distill clean water for drinking and agriculture.

Israel—a Nation of Innovators

{image_1}Recently the Dispatch from Jerusalem was invited to a media-only presentation which highlighted several Israeli companies in the field of bio-tech, the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make useful products, and medical devices. Steve Rhodes from The Trendlines Group, a company which invests in and develops new businesses, gave a short introduction, before representatives of the individual companies made their presentations.

The Contagious War—Syria’s Conflict Spreads to the Region

{image_1}It all started with groups of protesters, angry about the lack of freedom in Syria. Innocents without guns being beaten back by the Syrian army. Two years later, with more than 70,000 dead and 1 million refugees, the Syrian uprising has become a brutal civil war. But just as the conflict has spread from protests to gun battles, the fight has also gone from Syrian villages to areas outside the country’s borders. Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq are already feeling the heat of a war that is much too close to home. The West has long feared this internal war could turn into a regional one. In many ways, it already has.

Rare Ritual Bath Revealed

{image_1}In an archaeological excavation in Jerusalem, a rare ritual bath (mikveh) was exposed that dates to the late Second Temple period [530 BC–AD 70]. According to Benyamin Storchan, director of the excavation, “Numerous ritual baths have been excavated in Jerusalem in recent years, but the water supply system that we exposed in this excavation is unique and unusual. The ritual bath consists of an underground chamber entered by way of steps. The mikveh received the rainwater from three collecting basins (otzar) that were hewn on the roof of the bath, and the pure water was conveyed inside the chamber through channels.

Byzantine Industrial Installation

{image_1}Archaeological excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority provide a glimpse at hundreds of years of magnificent history that lie beneath the busy streets. Recently impressive remains of an industrial installation from the Byzantine period, which was used to extract liquid, were exposed on Hai Gaon Street [in Jaffa].