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| Week ending Shabbat, September 16, 2006 |
23 Elul, 5766 |
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Ads Claim Divine Retribution for Disengagement:
 This week ads have been appearing in major Israeli newspapers stating, "One year after the expulsion of Jews - there is justice and there is a Judge." The ads feature nine well-known backers of the Disengagement Plan who have suffered a variety of misfortunes in the year following implementation. The largest picture is of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who suffered a stroke last winter and despite many surgeries remains in a coma. His son, Omri, who is recently the recipient of an active jail sentence, is pictured alongside him. Other featured are:
- The current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is also featured. He is the subject of a State Comptroller recommendation for an indictment for his political appointments as Minister of Industry. Later in the week Olmert was linked to yet another suspicious real estate deal. Olmert was the first member of the Sharon government to come out in support of a Gaza withdrawal, despite the fact that Labor party candidate Amram Mitzna lost the election running on that very platform.
- Chaim Ramon, a longtime backer of a withdrawal from Gaza, and who left the Labor Party to join Sharon’s Kadima Party, recently resigned from his position as Justice Minister after being indicted for sexual harassment.
- President Moshe Katzav, who is currently being investigated on sexual charges, appears as well. Though Katzav was not a vocal backer of the Disengagement, he refused to criticize it prior to its implementation and called on the residents to leave willingly a week before the forced expulsion.
Disengagement Authority chief Yonatan Bassi, a member of a religious kibbutz in the Beit She'an valley, is rumored to have cancer and appears as well.
- Chief of Staff Dan Halutz was recently humiliated by reports he sold his stock portfolio in the hours leading up to the war in Lebanon, immediately following the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers by Hizbullah. He is also being blamed for mishandling of the war.
- Halutz was appointed to his position when IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon was dismissed ahead of schedule, reportedly due to his muted opposition to the Disengagement Plan.
- Police Chief Moshe Karadi has been linked to Israel's Parinion crime family. According to recently released testimony before a governmental commission, the family had a part in Karadi's appointment to the post.
Shai Gefen, a member of the committee, which is affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement said that he does not see the campaign as a provocation. "The Hebrew month of Elul is a time of soul-searching," he said. "From the perspective of loving our fellow Jews we must make it clear to our leaders that for every retreat there is a price tag, there is Divine retribution."
Galilee Offers World's First Pomegranate Wine:
Surely by now everyone has noticed that the hottest trend in the food industry is pomegranate products, but several years before the trend began, a family living in the Upper Galilee region began working to create a tastier and healthier version of the ancient fruit. In the process they crossed over into yet another huge food market. Their product: the world's first pomegranate wine fit to be sold to international wine connoisseurs.
Ten years ago a father and son, Gaby and Avi Nachmias, the third generation of a farming family who were founding members of Moshav Kerem Ben Zimra in the Galilee, began experimenting to create a new strain of pomegranates. They understood the fruit's excellent therapeutic qualities and their goal was to engineer a "super fruit" that would be richer in vitamins and antioxidants, sweeter, and deeper in its red color than most pomegranate types. After several years of growing their new strain successfully, the family tried making 2,000 bottles of pomegranate dessert wine from their crop. The family said that everyone who tasted it loved it, so they built a production line the following year [2004] to produce dry and dessert wines in commercial quantities. That batch was also well received, and the following year the family founded the Rimon Winery, named after the Hebrew word for pomegranate, and began mass production for the local and international markets. "In general, pomegranates don't have enough natural sugar to ferment into alcohol on its own," said Leo Open, Rimon's director of international marketing. "In the past, some people have added alcohol to pomegranate juice to create a form of liquor, but no one has successfully made wine. Our pomegranates are the only ones in the world that have enough sugar to do so naturally."
Hebrew University Ranks Among the Best:
Hebrew University [located on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem], the only university in the Middle East to be included, ranks 82nd on the list, which is headed by Harvard, Stanford and Yale. Newsweek said its study took into account "openness and diversity, as well as distinction in research."
In a separate ranking of the world's top 500 universities, published earlier this year by China's Shanghai Jiaotong University ranked Hebrew University in 60th place. The Chinese report had rated the university in 78th place the previous year. Also placing on the report were Haifa's Technion (115), Tel Aviv University (116), Rehovot's Weizmann Institute (151), Bar Ilan University (303), Ben Gurion University (304) and the University of Haifa (467).
Hebrew University was founded by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber, and Chaim Weizmann, among others, and has a reputation for its studies in the sciences and religion, housing the world's largest Jewish studies collection. Recent Nobel Prize Laureate Robert Aumann is a professor at the university.
Tour Israel for Hanukkah:
Join us as we explore Israel from a genuine Biblical Zionists perspective. Meet the people who are continuing the Biblical narrative in the Land today. See for yourself how ancient prophesies are being fulfilled. Discover how you too can participate in the ongoing process of Biblical Redemption. Join us for an opportunity of a lifetime, to see the real Israel from the viewpoint of those who are living the Bible today. The experience will change your life.
The tour has been coordinated and will be guided by Associate Pastor Jon Klein [pictured left].
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