X-Nico

55 unusual facts about Israel


Amnon Kapeliouk

Amnon Kapeliouk (Hebrew: אמנון קפליוק) (22 December 1930– 26 June 2009) was an Israeli journalist and author.

Ben Ammi Ben-Israel

Ben Ammi and more of his followers arrived in the ensuing months, settling in Dimona.

Ben Carter

Ben Ammi Ben-Israel or Ben Carter (born 1939), American founder and spiritual leader of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem

Berakah Project

Mohammed Nazam's work with Berakah led to an invitation to take part in projects based in Israel/Palestine in 2005 and 2009.

Bnot Ya'akov Bridge

Jacob's Ford was a key river crossing point and major trade route between Acre and Damascus.

British-Israel-World Federation

At one time this organization enjoyed the patronage of members of the British establishment including HRH Princess Alice of Athlone, the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl of Dysart, Lord Gisborough, and William Massey, the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Carl Alpert

Carl Alpert (May 12, 1913 – May 12, 2005) was a Boston-born journalist, author, communal worker and public relations specialist, first in America and then in Israel (where he settled in 1952 after making Aliyah).

Dahaniya

Israel's unilateral disengagement plan to leave the entire Gaza Strip, including the village of Dahaniya, meant that Israeli security forces would no longer be able to defend the residents from Palestinian militants.

Dan Harel

In this capacity he not only implemented counterterrorism measures, but was also the commander in charge of Israel's Gaza pull-out in the summer of 2005.

Danny Ben-Israel

Danny Ben-Israel was a notable Israeli musician of the late 1960s and early 1970s, producing psychedelic progressive rock with socially concerned lyrics in Hebrew.

Economy of the Palestinian territories

In the wake of Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza, there were shortages of bread and basic supplies due to closure of the al Mentar/Karni border-crossing into Israel.

Emil Gorovets

In 1972, Gorovets and his wife, the actress Margarita Polonskaya (in Russian Маргарита Полонская), his partner and assistant, applied to emigrate to Israel, where they arrived in 1973.

Fishi Ha-Gadol

Adam Levinzon (born in 1977) in Israel, know as The Big Fishi (Fishi Hagadol - פישי הגדול) and Adam Ben-Lavi, is a music producer and an Israeli rapper.

Garin Torani

The phrase is used today, in Israel, to refer to a group of idealistic, religious zionist individuals and families who try to effect social and religious development in underdeveloped communities.

The original Garinim Toraniim began in development towns in Israel.

While Rabbis and synagogues are in abundance in Israel, members of traditional (masorati) communities often have no connection to a community rabbi.

Gataka

Gataka, the scene name of the Israeli DJ Matan Kadosh, also famous for participating in psytrance trio Sesto Sento.

George Biddlecombe

When attached to the Talbot, 1838–42, he surveyed numerous anchorages on the Ionian station, in the Archipelago, and up the Dardanelles and Bosphorus; examined the south shore of the Black Sea as far as Trabzon, as well as the port of Varna, and prepared a survey, published by the admiralty, of the bays and banks of Akko.

Georgians in Israel

Ethnic Georgians in Israel number around 75,000 to 80,000 which mostly include Georgian Jews.

Hakhel

In the twentieth century, however, it was revived by the government of Israel and by groups of Jews in other places on a symbolic basis.

Hapoel Rishon LeZion

Hapoel Rishon LeZion is an Hapoel sports club in the city of Rishon LeZion, Israel.

Hundred Days' War

The outcome of the meeting was essentially a reaffirmation of the role of the ADF and a strong condemnation of those dealing with Israel.

Igor Kipnis

Following his debut in 1959, harpsichordist, fortepianist, duo-pianist, and clavichordist Kipnis performed in recital and as soloist with orchestras throughout the world, including North, Central, and South America, Western and Eastern Europe, Israel, and Australia.

Indians in Israel

Indians in Israel almost exclusively consist of Indian Jews who migrated there on formation of the modern state of Israel.

Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment

Among those interviewed are first, second and third generation members from kibbutzim like Degania, the flagship commune established in 1910; Hulda, once near collapse and recently privatized; Sasa, the first to be settled entirely by Americans and today Israel's wealthiest kibbutz; and Tamuz, an urban kibbutz founded in 1987 and located in Beit Shemesh.

Ir Ganim

The Lavan Valley is situated between Ir Ganim and Givat Massuah to the east and Moshav Ora to the west.

Israel's Department Store

Following the takeover of the store, Wilfrid Israel, who had run the business with his brother, emigrated to England, where he took up a research position at Balliol College, Oxford.

They were allegedly flying as a decoy so that another plane, which carried Prime Minister Winston Churchill, could land safely.

From there, he tried to establish contact with the German underground through Sir Stafford Cripps, Britain's foreign minister, and organized ship transports for Jewish children escaping from Europe.

Israel's Son

It was also released on their The Best of Volume 1, and used on the soundtrack to the western version of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.

Jerusalem Program

The Jerusalem Program differed from the original Basel Program in which it shifted the goals of the Zionist Movement once the State of Israel was already established.

Kåre Kristiansen

He opposed Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip, to the point of refusing an invitation to join in an event that also featured moderate Israeli politician and chief rabbi of Norway, Michael Melchior.

Kiryat Menachem

It is bordered by Ir Ganim to the south and east, Mount Ora to the west, and the Jerusalem Hills to the north.

Menachem Oren

In 1949, Chwojnik emigrated, via Czechoslovakia and Austria, to Israel, where he had changed name to Menachem Oren.

Michael Maschler

He was a professor in the Einstein Institute of Mathematics and the Center for the Study of Rationality at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

Molad

The molad amiti (true molad), which has no relevance to the Hebrew calendar, is the time at which the actual astronomical lunar conjunction occurs, often expressed either as the mean solar time in Jerusalem (Universal Time + 2h 20m 56s or simply + 2h 21m) or as the clock time in Israel.

Mt Carmel blind mole rat

Following the identification of S. carmeli in 2001, Nevo et al. recorded specimens in the vicinity surrounding the Afik, Kabri, and Tzippori settlements.

Political accusations against the Baha'i Faith

In one edition of the faked memories, Dolgorukov is said to have provided money for Bahá'u'lláh to build a house in Acre, but Dolgorukov died in 1867, before Bahá'u'lláh arrived in Acre.

Post-Zionism

Post-Zionism refers to the opinions of some Israelis, diaspora Jews and others, particularly in academia, that Zionism has fulfilled its ideological mission with the creation of the modern State of Israel in 1948, and that Zionist ideology should therefore be considered at an end.

Ram Moav

Ram Moav (1930 - 1984) was an Israeli geneticist and science fiction writer.

Refusal to serve in the IDF

In 2005, as a reaction to the Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, a group called "Mateh Chomat Magen" (the name referring to Operation Defensive Shield) published a letter with 10,000 signatures of soldiers who signed a petition saying that they would refuse to uproot and remove Israeli settlements.

Rena Costa Center for Yiddish Studies

The Center’s home is in the Faculty of Jewish Studies in the Bar-Ilan University campus in Ramat Gan, Israel.

Reuven Shiloah

After his tenure at the Mossad Shiloah worked in the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC and continued serving as an advisor.

Rosh HaNikra grottoes

Nowadays all the railways on the Lebanese side of the border have been dismantled while the Coastal Railway in Israel currently ends near Nahariya, several kilometers to the south.

Sabra and Shatila massacre

Notwithstanding the dissuading conclusions of the Kahan report, Sharon would later become Prime Minister of Israel.

Shdwan Battle

The Battle lasted between the Israeli battalion and the Sa'ka Officers which led to casualties in the Israeli forces which includes projection of 2 jets.

Sheikh Khalifa City

Once called "Morag", when it was a Gush Katif settlement, it has been retroceded to the Palestinian authorities after the settlers' buildings and facilities were destroyed by Israel in 2005.

Shlomo Baum

Shlomo Baum (1929 – January 17, 1999) was an Israeli military commando fighter.

Socialist Zionists

Adherents of Socialist Zionism or Labor Zionism, a major ideological and political current in the history of Zionism and Israel

Two-state solution

Such occurred in 2005 when the evacuation of settlers and security personnel from Gaza was undertaken by the IDF, with many of the former settlers being re-settled in the West Bank.

Tzohar organization

Tzohar organization was founded by a group of rabbis from religious Zionism group, in order to be partners in shaping the Jewish character of Israel, from the dialogue and the search for common identity elements.

William IV, Count of Nevers

William IV, Count of Nevers, (c. 1130 – Acre, 24 October 1168) Count of Nevers, Auxerre and Tonnerre (1161–1168).

Yavneh Olami

The organization, affiliated with World Mizrachi, runs educational programs that focus on pro-Israel advocacy, Israel connectivity, leadership development, and encouraging Jewish students to make Israel their home.

Yeshivat Ma'alot

The Yeshiva is named after Rabbi Dr. Ya'akov Herzog, son of the late Chief Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog and brother of the late President of Israel Chaim Herzog.

Zvi Malnovitzer

The following year, Malnovitzer painted “Exodus” (2007), depicting the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the unilateral evacuation of 21 civilian Jewish settlements.


1950 in Israel

17 February – King Abdullah I of Jordan and Mossad Director Reuven Shiloah of Israel met at the King's winter palace at El Shuneh, where the King presented a seven point treaty proposal.

Alabama Policy Institute

In 2005, it criticized Democrats for failing to take on a hardline position against Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements about Israel.

Arkadaş Association

Arkadaş Association is an Israel-Turkey friendship organization located in Yehud, Israel.

Barbara Schlick

She has since appeared at major concert halls, performance venues, and music festivals throughout Europe, Israel, Japan, Canada, the United States and Russia, singing under the batons of people like Frans Brüggen, William Christie, Michel Corboz, Reinhard Goebel, Philippe Herreweghe, René Jacobs, Sigiswald Kuijken, and Karl-Friedrich Beringer.

Big Brother 5

HaAh HaGadol 5, the current 2013 edition of Big Brother in Israel

Big Gus, What's the Fuss?

Big Gus, What's the Fuss? (also known as Ha-Balash Ha'Amitz Shvartz and Fat Spy) was a 1973 Israeli comedy film directed by Ami Artzi and American director Lloyd Kaufman, the president of Troma Entertainment.

CenterLink

CenterLink's website currently provides a web-based directory (and map) of community centers both within and outside of the United States, including Canada, Israel, Mexico, China and Japan.

Chezki Lifshitz

Chezki Lifshitz was born in 1974 to Tzvi Menashe and Ester Lifshitz in Bnei Brak, Israel, he Studied in Chabad Yeshiva Ktana of Lod, and Yeshiva Gdola of Kfar Chabad.

Dark retreat

All spiritual traditions have used Darkness Techniques in the pursuit of enlightenment: in Europe, the dark room appeared as a network of tunnels, in Egypt as the Pyramides, in Rome as the catacombs, by the Essenes in Israel and Taoists in China as caves.

Dorothy Norman

During the 1930s and 1940s Norman was active in various liberal causes, particularly civil rights, education, and independence for India and for Israel.

Economic Cooperation Foundation

The ‘Architects of Oslo’, then developed the ‘BeilinAbu Mazen Understanding’, the first jointly developed detailed concept of a comprehensive Permanent Status Understanding between Israel and a Palestinian State.

Edward Israel

Israel and the rest of the crew spent two years at a camp they called Fort Conger.

Eric Moonman

From 1980 it was funded instead by the World Zionist Organization and from 1985 also by the Israel Foreign Ministry.

Estonia Fed Cup team

Estonia came through Europe/Africa Zone Group I and then edged Israel in a World Group II Play-off to qualify for World Group II for the first time just a year after promotion from Group II.

Eyal Gabbai

This period was characterized by vigorous privatization of state companies, including El Al, Bezeq, Israel's Oil Refineries and Zim, selling shares in a total value of 14b NIS in an unprecedented privatization spree.

Hamuchtar

Accompanied by an accordionist, he toured Israel amidst scud rocket attacks and re-introduced chansons and burlesque to Bauhaus Tel-Aviv.

Howard Gordon

Based on the Israeli series Prisoners of War, it centers on a woman (Claire Danes) who works for the CIA and is convinced a recently returned American prisoner of war (Damian Lewis) has been turned by al-Qaeda.

Hutzot HaMifratz Railway Station

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict train service to the station was suspended after a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket hit a train depot in Haifa on July 16, 2006, killing 8 Israel Railways workers.

IMI 120 mm gun

In 1998 the Israel Defense Prize was awarded to Israeli Military Industries for this development, which gave Israel the means to produce tank guns independently.

Indirect election

Many republics with parliamentary systems elect their president indirectly (Germany, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, India, Israel).

Islam in Libya

The Jihad Fund, supported by a payroll tax, was established in 1970 to aid the Palestinians in their struggle with Israel.

Israel Democracy Institute

In 2001 the institute established a public council led by Meir Shamgar in order to consolidate an Israeli constitution which would be agreed upon by all the current currents in Israel.

Israel–Kenya relations

Following the Kenyan presidential election, 2007, there was rioting, and Israel came to the aid of Kenyans by donating medicine to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret.

Israel–Nauru relations

In 2011 the two countries signed a Visa exemption agreement, which allows the citizens of the two countries to have limited tourist visits to the other country without visa issuance.

Israeli lira

Israel inherited the Palestinian pound but, shortly after the establishment of the state, new banknotes were issued by the London-based Anglo-Palestine bank of the Zionist movement.

Israeli presidential election, 2007

Other persons who had been considered as possible candidates included Dalia Itzik (Kadima), Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor), Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, and Meir Shamgar.

Jennens

Charles Jennens (1700 – 20 November 1773) was an English landowner and patron of the arts, who assembled the text for five of Handel's oratorios: Saul, Israel in Egypt, L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, Messiah, and Belshazzar.

Jerusalem Program

The task of Zionism is the consolidation of the State of Israel, the in gathering of exiles in Eretz Israel, and the fostering of the unity of the Jewish people.

Lawrence Bergman

He also received several honors for his service among the Jewish Community while he was a council member of the Montreal Jewish Community, an honorary president of the Montreal's Jewish community centres and the director of Magen David Adom for Israel.

Mario Pergolini

The Israel TV version (anchored by Avri Gilad) did not catch with Israeli audiences and was discontinued after half a season.

Middle East

These were followed by the Hittite, Greek and Urartian civilisations of Asia Minor, Elam in pre-Iranian Persia, as well as the civilizations of the Levant (such as Ebla, Ugarit, Canaan, Aramea, Phoenicia and Israel), Persian and Median civilizations in Iran, North Africa (Carthage/Phoenicia) and the Arabian Peninsula (Magan, Sheba, Ubar).

Mostar Round-Trip

A year after 17-year-old Yuval leaves home in Israel to attend the United World College in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina, filmmaker David Fisher, his father, follows.

Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington

Günter Beck, a lecturer for the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at the Haifa Center for German and European Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, compared Lisa's role in the episode to the nineteenth-century American poet and philosopher Henry David Thoreau.

Nachlaot

The name comes from a biblical verse (Numbers 24:5): "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob/Thy dwellings, O Israel." Mazkeret Moshe was founded by Sir Moses Montefiore in 1882 as an Ashkenazi neighborhood.

Olympic Committee of Israel

OCI achieved IOC recognition in early 1952, just in time for Israel's Olympic debut at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.

Omar Barghouti

In response, Samir El-Youssef states that "Barghouti’s 'true peace based on justice' is that Israel must be punished, brought down to its knees, before a Palestinian is allowed to greet an Israeli in the street".

Palestine Railways P class

After the War of Independence and subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War, main line services were truncated to the territory within the new State of Israel.

Patricia Harrison

Under Harrison's direction, the State Department initiated the CultureCommect program in which American celebrities such as YoYo Ma, Denyce Graves, Doris Roberts and Frank McCourt acted as "cultural ambassadors" in trips to Pakistan, Russia, Israel and other countries.

Robert Whittaker

s under Whittaker include Walter Westman, Robert Peet (now at University of North Carolina), Susan Bratton (now at Baylor University), Thomas Wentworth (now at North Carolina State University), Owen Sholes (now at Assumption College), Mark Wilson (now at Oregon State University), Linda Olsvig-Whittaker (now at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority) and Kerry Woods (now at Bennington College).

Rogatchover Gaon

The remainder of his surviving writings appeared in the United States and Israel many years after his death; all are titled Tzofnath Paneach "decipherer of secrets", (a title given to the Biblical Joseph by Pharaoh (Genesis 41:45)).

Rome and Vienna airport attacks

At 08:15 GMT, four gunmen walked to the shared ticket counter for Israel's El Al Airlines and Trans World Airlines at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport outside Rome, Italy, fired assault rifles, and threw grenades.

Samakh

Samakh, Tiberias, an abandoned former Palestinian village at the south end of the Sea of Galilee in Israel

Solomon ben David

Solomon, Solomon ben David, son of King David who succeeded his father as King of Israel and founded the line of the Kings of Judah, 10th century BCE

Syro-Ephraimite War

Isaiah concludes these prophecies concerning his children (Shear-Jashub (meaning 'a remnant returns', Isaiah 7.3), Immanuel (meaning 'God is with us'), and Maher-shalal-hash-baz (meaning 'quick to plunder, speedy to spoil') by saying, 'Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.' (Isaiah 8.18 NIV) Interestingly enough, the context continues into chapter 9 which also uses a birth of a child as its object.

The Little Drummer Girl

The story follows the manipulations of Martin Kurtz, an Israeli spymaster who is trying to kill a Palestinian terrorist named Khalil, who is bombing Jewish-related targets in Europe, particularly Germany, and the English actress Charlie, who becomes a double agent working on behalf of the Israelis.

Ulpana Tzfira

Ulpana Tzfira is a religious institution for girls which is located in Tzafria, Israel.

United States–Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013

Coogan believes that the program would allow Israel to discriminate against Palestinian Americans, Arab Americans and Muslim-Americans who travel to Israel.