May 16, 2019

A $12 million endowment fund has been established for The Abraham Initiatives, a Jewish-Arab coexistence organization.

The fund was announced on Tuesday night at an event celebrating the 30th anniversary of a group that works for equal society in Israel. A former Abraham Initiatives co-chair, Howard Sohn, initiated the fund. Sohn, now a board member, is chairman of the Fohs Foundation.

The organization’s four lead donors — the Fohs Foundation, Abraham Initiatives co-chair Orni Petruschka, board member Claude Ghez and the Alan B. Slifka Foundation — will provide the initial donations.

“A prosperous and democratic Israel requires that its Arab citizens be fully integrated, with the same rights, resources and opportunities as Jewish citizen,” Sohn said at the anniversary event. “The Fohs Foundation has worked closely with The Abraham Initiatives, and others that share this vision, for more than 15 years. Much progress has been made, but many more years, even decades, of effort will be required to fully achieve the goal.”

The fund will go toward general operating expenses and enable the organization to implement its long-term goals and projects.

Rest easy, Madonna fans, it’s official: The pop icon will sing at the Eurovision Song Contest finals in Tel Aviv.

She signed her contract on Thursday morning, two days before her performance, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported. Madonna is scheduled to perform two songs on Saturday night.

Though she had yet to make it official, Madonna rehearsed on Wednesday and Thursday morning. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the 60-year-old singer was prevented briefly from entering the venue, Expo Tel Aviv, on Thursday because of the unsigned contract.

Madonna arrived in Israel on Tuesday night along with an entourage of 135, a day after her stage set and some of her equipment arrived.

On Tuesday she told Reuters in a statement that supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel would not influence her to cancel her performance at the 42-country music contest.

“I’ll never stop playing music to suit someone’s political agenda nor will I stop speaking out against violations of human rights wherever in the world they may be,” she said.

Meanwhile, The Shalva Band, a group of musicians with various disabilities that pulled out of the running to represent Israel over issues of Sabbath observance, are preparing to take the Eurovison stage during Thursday night’s semifinal.  Shalva will perform as one of the interval acts while the votes are cast and results are tabulated.

(JTA) — A teenager has turned himself in for punching an identifiably Jewish man in the head in Brooklyn.

It was one of two attacks on haredi Orthodox men in the largely haredi Williamsburg neighborhood in less than two weeks.

Police are withholding the 16-year-old’s name because he is a minor. He turned himself in on Wednesday and was charged with hate crimes assault and aggravated harassment, the New York Post reported.

A surveillance camera caught the incident.

JERUSALEM (JTA) — NASA released a photo of what it says is the crash site of Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander.

The image taken some 56 miles from the surface of the moon by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 22, 11 days after the crash, shows a dark smudge that indicates the point of impact.

A light halo around the smudge could have formed from gas associated with the impact or from fine soil particles blown outward during Beresheet’s descent, which smoothed out the soil around the landing site, making it highly reflective, NASA said in a statement.

The statement also says that NASA knew the coordinates of the landing site due to radio tracking of Beresheet. NASA was able to compare 11 images taken over a decade of the area with three images taken after the crash to determine the site of the crash.

The orbiter will pass the crash site again on May 19 and may take more photos, according to NASA.

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New image! 📸 Our @NASAMoon orbiter captured this visual of the lunar impact site from @TeamSpaceIL's Beresheet spacecraft. If you look close, there are also clues about a possible man-made crater on the Moon: https://t.co/WgYqoxEMhS pic.twitter.com/jxdr9VV8Lq

— NASA (@NASA) May 15, 2019

NASA is working to determine if the Laser Retroreflector Array it installed on Beresheet to conduct research after it landed on the surface of the moon survived the impact and is still operational.

The results of an investigation into its crash will be published later this month. A preliminary investigation conducted by SpaceIL, which planned and executed the space shot, determined that a command issued to correct the force and angle at which the craft was landing led to an unpredicted shutdown of its main engine.