tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68210905324467000842023-11-15T23:35:39.712-08:00Not Your Grandpa's JerusalemThe Joys and Challenges of Israel today.Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-70677310192129552192015-03-04T06:56:00.000-08:002015-03-04T06:56:15.924-08:00Life on the Front-lines; A Visit to Nativ HaAsara on the Border with Gaza
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Moshav Nativ HaAsara on Northern Gaza Border with Israel
At least one imperiled Israeli town is now inviting the public to learn
about life on the frontlines at the farm community, Nativ HaAsara. This Moshav
(a collective farm with privately owned homes) is right on the northern Gaza
border, besieged with terror from above (Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-10319508038729357312012-03-08T05:08:00.001-08:002012-03-08T05:14:30.241-08:00Dead Sea Scrolls
Fragment of Dead Sea Scrolls
Last month, I visited Qumran (now located in the West Bank, but open to the public) and stared at the gaping holes in the desert mountainside where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. "Scrolls" is somewhat of a misnomer; much of what was excavated from these caves were fragments of the Jewish holy books and required much restoration. Nearly a thousand Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-32994968465256754972012-02-25T04:13:00.000-08:002012-02-25T04:15:16.044-08:00Afula/Gilboa - Our "Sister City" Through Partnership Together
Perhaps this rainbow was a sign on our way up to the Lower Galilee and our Sister Region of Afula/Gilboa that this was going to be a meaningful (and colorful) weekend. Rain-clouds cleared as we drove north from Tel Aviv, and this beautiful misty prism evoked smiles all around.
On the road from Tel Aviv to Afula, Israel
Shabbat evening, we were treated to a raucous dinner Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-86058915110296424102012-02-24T05:05:00.000-08:002012-02-24T05:07:47.110-08:00Shades of Tel Aviv, Israel
POST HEART TO HEART MISSION:
The city of Tel Aviv is made up of a disparate group of neighborhoods. There's the ancient stone-wall section high on a bluff, known for 4,000 years as Jaffa. There's the funky first-settlement outside of Jaffe called Neve Tzedek (known for boutiques, designers and celebrity restaurants). There's the Mediterranean Sea-lapped section of high-riseMalerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-91479470779966384232012-02-23T05:10:00.000-08:002012-02-23T05:10:52.077-08:00Eating our Hearts Out: Our Final Heart To Heart Day in Israel
To Americans raised on Lucky Charms and Cookie Crisp cereals, breakfast in Israel is a revelation. Somehow, the bounty of every Israeli farm and hydroponic greenhouse makes its way to private and hotel kitchens across the land. I've told my friends a million times - I'd fly 11 hours to Israel for the morning meal alone. We stayed just outside of Tzefat in a nice hotel called the Canaan Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-9220353815623913562012-02-22T03:46:00.000-08:002012-02-22T03:46:48.052-08:00A Heart to Heart Night in Tzefat; Birthplace of the Kabala
The Israeli city of Tzfat became an important center of Jewish life in the late 1400's after Jews were expelled from Spain during the Inquisition. From Hillel.org; The city is most closely associated with Jewish mysticism, the kabbalah, whose foremost exponent, Rabbi Isaac Luria,
lived and taught there. The "bible"
of the kabbalists, the Zohar, was attributed to the Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-56868831411945895892012-02-21T04:05:00.000-08:002012-02-21T07:14:37.891-08:00Heart to Heart in the Lab and Studying About Ethiopian Jewery
If your Jewish child isn't a doctor or lawyer, she's a scientist, right? Of course right!
This World-ORT sponsored High School - one of 200 schools in Israel serving 200,000 underprivileged students - concentrates on the sciences with cutting-edge lab facilities and very devoted teachers. ORT is yet another branch of JFNA-funded agencies - one that focuses on education and job training. In Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-12528490955494111712012-02-20T06:33:00.000-08:002012-02-21T07:13:15.242-08:00Wheelchair Heroes, Heart to Heart Day 3
An emotional day for the women of Heart to Heart. Over breakfast, we listened to the very inspiring Orel Galula who, despite a degenerative disease and car accident that landed her permanently in a wheelchair, was determined not only to serve in the Israeli Defense Force but become an officer.
Orel Galula; First Wheelchair-Bound IDF Officer
Who's disabled, yo?
Israel
The Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-1631984850436989602012-02-19T12:20:00.000-08:002012-02-21T07:10:16.844-08:00Heart to Heart Day One, Con't
In the 1900's, money raised for Israel was all about building, buying, pioneering and greening the land. In the late 1800's, most of what is now Tel Aviv (outside of Jaffa) was sand dunes, and other outlying areas in Israel were malarial swamps frequented, unbelievably, by water buffalo. Remember the JNF (Jewish National Fund) Plant-A-Tree certificates that we bought every year around Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-18451769616932641512012-02-17T08:21:00.000-08:002012-02-21T08:30:54.836-08:00Heart to Heart; A Women's Philanthropic Visit to Israel Day One
Definition of PHILANTHROPY
1. Goodwill to fellow members of the human race : active effort to promote human welfare
2. An act or gift done or made for humanitarian purposes: an organization distributing or supported by funds set aside for humanitarian purposes.
There are millions of reasons to visit the land of Israel; to study, work, learn, see friends and Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-19389123797998582322012-02-16T03:07:00.000-08:002012-02-16T03:07:51.128-08:00If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning
From Psalm 137 of the Hebrew Bible:
"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps.
For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, and our
tormentors asked of us mirth: 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?
If I forget theeMalerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-25250458267644521442012-02-15T05:37:00.001-08:002023-11-02T04:49:25.086-07:00Apartheid, Shmapartheid; The Fallacy of Israel Segregation
Apartheid - racial segregation; specifically a policy of segregation and political and economic discrimination.
For those who throw around the word Apartheid in regard to the little democratic country of Israel, especially on US college campuses where anti-Israel rhetoric is rampant, I'd like to offer a pictorial reality check. But first, a few facts. The whole population of Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6821090532446700084.post-70702137002003969242012-02-14T10:32:00.000-08:002012-02-14T11:06:36.671-08:00The Lowest Point on Earth
Driving from Tel Aviv down almost 1400 ft. below sea level to the Dead Sea, crossing time and habitat, we stopped short to let a herd of roughly three dozen camels gallump across a major road. The sound of jet engines were still reverberating in my head when we spotted these ungainly beasts whose ancestors had caravanned over the ancient Spice Road, and I thought to myself - this is Israel; Malerie Yolen-Cohenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12291606019836050081noreply@blogger.com1