•The Israel native and Hollywood’s sensational star, Sacha Baron Cohen, arrived in Israel last Wednesday. The Dictator star stayed in a hotel in Tel-Aviv, along with his wife, actress Isla Fisher, and two daughters. This is not his first visit in Israel. Noam (his Hebrew name), comes here every once in a while to visit his 89 year old Grandmother. This was an unofficial visit, and the actor did his best trying to avoid the paparazzi, which managed to track him down, in spite of his very Israeli look.
•Conflict? What conflict? This Friday, a small delegation of teenage girls from the Hebrew settlement: Kfar Etzion, arrived in a Palestinian village Khirbet Zechariah. The girls, along with the head of the settlement’s council, came to thank Asharf Sadat, who saved their lives in a fire that broke in the settlement a while back. The members of the delegation handed Sadat a lovely bouquet of flowers, and expressed their deepest appreciation. During the fire, Dadat inhaled a great amount of smoke, and risked his life while fighting the flames.
•The Israeli Tirosh Shapira is the Israeli Avatar. No, this is not a Hebrew version of James Cameron’s movie, this is the real deal. Israeli and French scientists have succeeded in making a robot in France move according to the thoughts of a researcher staying in Israel. The Israeli researcher sat inside a fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance imaging),thought of a movement to the left or to the right, and a small robot in France received these orders and moved accordingly. When Shapira thought of legs, the robot moves forward; when he thought of the left hand, the robot moved to the left; when he thought of the right hand, the robot moved to the right. This was enabled without any mediation: from the researcher’s mind straight to the robot’s “legs”.
•For the tenth year, a special flight of American-Jews will land in Israel. No less than 60 singles in the search for love will land in Ben- Gurion Airport this Thursday, in the first round of the “singles flight”. During this summer, 450 single American-Jews are expected to make Aliya while searching for their Israeli soul-mate as a part of this unique and self-proven, Jewish matchmaking service. The “singles flights” are a shared project of “Nefesh be Nefesh” organization, together with the Jewish Agency and the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption. Thanks to this project, many American Jews shared their Aliya process with a native “special someone”. Since the project started ten years ago, 640 American singles and native Israelis got to stand under the Hupah.
•After failing to pass the Israeli Olympic criteria to join the delegation to London, high jumper Dima Kroyter, judoka Tommy Arshansky and archer Guy Matzkin appealed to the Israel Olympic Committee, requesting to include the three young athletes who have recorded very impressive achievements in their fields, in the Israeli delegation to London. The three passed the International criteria, yet failed to pass the Israeli one. The committee accepted two of the three appeals, and both Kroyter and Arshansky will try and conquer London this summer. Matzkin’s appeal was denied, in spite of a massive Facebook campaign calling the IOC to allow the talented archer to compete.
