Jewish Federation of Peoria

Netanyahu’s Surprise Move

admin — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:16:30 +0000

Gal’s Blog

We had a great time with Jay Footlik on Monday. It was very enriching experience so thank you all for coming. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

This week was very intense for Israeli politics. For several months all the Israeli politicians have talked about is moving up the 2013 elections to this summer. We learned Monday night that PM Netanyahu made a secret deal with the head of the biggest party in Israel -the “Kadima” party-and they decided keep elections in 2013 as planned. Meanwhile Kadima will join the Coalition creating the biggest Israeli Coalition ever – 94 members out of the 120 members in the Israeli parliament.

A lot of people in Israel are very disappointed about this recent move, even people from the PM’s party, they are claiming that you cannot say one thing to the public and then do the opposite.

The biggest looser from this move is probably the recently elected head of Kadima, Shaul Mofaz. A poll conducted yesterday predicted he will get six seats for his party in the next election, as opposed to the 29 seats that Kadima now holds. In his Facebook status just two months ago he wrote “The PM is a lair and I intend to replace him and not join him”. Apparently you should never believe a politician.

Kadima joined the coalition in order create a new law in Israel. The intention is to change the current situation of the ultra orthodox and the Arabs citizens in Israel who are not serving the state (nor in the army neither a national service); they just get an automatic exemption thanks to their origin. The majority of the population in Israel are frustrated with this situation and the head of Kadima party claimed that he joined the coalition after a promise from the PM who said that the law will be changed this year.

We all hope that this will happen after 64 years of them not serving the state.

Yesterday the PM of Hamas announced that Hamas wouldn’t attack Israel if Israel will attacked Iran.

It is a very surprising announcement because Hamas doesn’t recognize Israel and in their charter they call for the destruction of the Jewish state. This announcement is especially surprising because Hamas gets most of its funding from the regime in Iran.

In any case it’s great news for Israel that in case of attacking we won’t need to cope with two war fronts, but I would never trust the Hamas’s PM announcements!

Have a great week!

Gal

Israel Independence Day

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:56:56 +0000

Gal’s Blog

Last week we mentioned the Israel Independence Day celebration! Thank you all for joining us for this event! Israel was founded in 1948. David Ben Gurion, the first PM, declared a Jewish state in May of 1948. The declaration followed the UN’s decision in November 1947 to establish two states in the land of Israel; a Jewish state to live side by side with an Arab state. The Jews accepted the UN’s offer while the Arabs rejected it.

A few hours after Ben Gurion’s announcement six different Arab armies attacked the young Jewish state. The state survived the attack and won the war. The war later was known as the War of Independence- “Milchemet Ha’atzmaot”.

Every year at Mount Hertzel in Jerusalem there is the main “Yom Ha’atzmaot” ceremony, the ceremony marks the end of Yom Hazikron and the starting of Yom Ha’atzmaot. During this years rehearsal for the big “Yom Ha’atzmaot” ceremony, one of the lighting pools collapsed and an IDF officer died. As a consequence this year the ceremony was not happy (like every year ) because the death of the young officer clouded the atmosphere. Her mother got the honor to light the main torch in the ceremony and in all the military drills there was an empty spot in her honor. Although it was a very tragic event, the tribute paid to the fallen officer meant a lot to the family. We can learn a lot from it about the value that Israelis place on human life and their recognition of the one another’s sorrow.

This week the Israeli parliament got back to work after the long winter break. This will probably be the last period before the election. Although the election is supposed to be at the end of 2013 all the parties in the parliament including the Prime Ministers’ are talking about moving the elections up to the end of September. The PM’s father died this week at the age of 102. Once the PM will finish the Shiva’a he is supposed to declare the date of the election. Netanyahu’s dad, Professor Ben-Zion Netanyahu, was one of the intellectual leaders in Israel; he edited the first Hebrew Encyclopedia and was a well-known professor in the world. He worked with Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who was one of the greatest leaders of the Zionist movement.

Enjoy your weekend!

6 pm YAD-TGIS Chanukkah Dinner