Israel Matters!

Between Pesach and Shavuot: Six Israel-Defining Days while Counting the Omer

TBS members are of course familiar with the major Jewish holidays. Indeed, as you read this you will have recently celebrated Pesach while anticipating the next major holiday of Shavuot commemorating G-d’s giving of the Torah to Moses and the Jewish people. The Counting of the Omer begins on the second night of Pesach, but during the six weeks from the end of Pesach until Shavuot there are six major observances that are by turns secular and religious, happy and sad, that characterize Israeli life while making a powerful impression on anyone who happens to be visiting the country. If you really want to feel part of the Israeli experience, these six weeks are hard to beat. (more…)

Israel is not Russia, Gaza is not Ukraine

At the time of writing this column, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is in full force with unbridled attacks on civilian populations in Ukraine’s major cities. With the exception of such noble countries as Syria, Belarus, North Korea, and Eritrea (known as the North Korea of Africa), the world recognizes Russia’s invasion for what it is: an undisguised power grab meant to throttle the aspirations of the Ukrainian population to remain a democracy and bond more closely with Europe. Indeed, as of this writing, Russia has threatened “Ukrainian statehood” exposing Russia’s intent to force Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence. (more…)

Fill in the Blanks with Israeli Cities and Towns!

We are going to play a little game in this installment of Israel Matters. Below are a bunch of statements which require you to fill in the blank. In the column across are the names of Israeli cities, towns, and villages. You need to fill in the blanks using these names. Warning – while all the locations are real Israeli places, you might need some creativity to fill in the blanks! (more…)

Israeli Weird Science

When reading or hearing about Israel in the news these days, it seems that there are only two stories repeated over and over again – the latest round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Israel’s leading edge in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. While aspects of both of these have been addressed here, we at Israel Matters pledged broader coverage of Israel the land and stuff that happens there. (more…)

New Jersey and Israel: Roads Scholars

The New Jersey-Israel Commission (https://nj.gov/state/njic.shtml) was established to foster a spirit of cooperation between the State of Israel and the State of New Jersey. New Jersey is not the only American state with such an office, but here at Israel Matters we have discovered that New Jersey and Israel do in fact have a lot in common. For starters, Israel and New Jersey take up roughly the same amount of space on a map, that is, they are about the same size! But how do people get around? (more…)

New Jersey and Israel: Roads Scholars

The New Jersey-Israel Commission (https://nj.gov/state/njic.shtml) was established to foster a spirit of cooperation between the State of Israel and the State of New Jersey. New Jersey is not the only American state with such an office, but here at Israel Matters we have discovered that New Jersey and Israel do in fact have a lot in common. For starters, Israel and New Jersey take up roughly the same amount of space on a map, that is, they are about the same size! But how do people get around? (more…)

Dome on the Range

After the failure of the Bill Clinton-moderated 2000 Camp David peace talks between Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinians launched the Second Intifada, a violent uprising against Israel that regularly featured terror attacks targeting Israeli civilians. The initial terror tactics involved shootings into outlying buildings in Israeli towns or on Israelis driving along roads. (more…)

From Citrus to Cyberspace

When was the last time you had a Jaffa Orange? As children we gushed with pride and boasted that the very best oranges in the supermarket were from Israel! The Jaffa Orange was a tangible (and tasty!) reminder of the miracle of Israel. The ability to irrigate and re-engineer agriculture produced results (and produce!) Out of the desert … oranges! Israel produced as much as 1.8 million tons of caitrus in the 1980’s. I’m telling you, that fruit has appeal! But times have changed. Annual Israeli citrus production has dropped about 75% since those years. More broadly as shown in the chart below, while agriculture was responsible for over 40% of the value of Israel’s exports in the late 1950’s, these days agriculture only amounts to about 2% of the value of everything Israel sends to the world. What happened? (more…)

Israel and the Delta Variant: Lessons for US

In the July/August issue of Israel Matters, you were promised in-person reporting from Israel. Well, as you might have guessed, Covid had other plans in the form of an Israeli Delta Variant outbreak. So, in place of an in-person story, here is a one-person-removed accounting of what is going on in Israel.
To set the context, recall that in October 2020, all of us were isolated from each other and sad at the situation into which the pandemic had forced us. I decided to do something that always makes me happy and booked a trip to Israel, convincing my NYC friend Shari to join me. We made reservations for July 2021, at which time we assumed this mess would be over.
Obviously, we were wrong. (more…)

There Are Judges In Jerusalem

A lot has happened in Israel since we took you on a river ride down the Hetzbani river last month. Hamas indiscriminately fired over 4,000 rockets at Israeli civilians, Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system prevented the vast majority of those rockets capable of causing civilian casualties from landing, and Israel’s air force punished Hamas with civilian-casualty-minimizing strikes that degraded Hamas’s rocket and tunnel infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. (more…)