College students design tefillin for women

From JPost.com

Shenkar College’s Concoction Week takes place this week; all third year students from both the college’s faculties of design and engineering are participating in a range of workshops.

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Students from the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan have created tefillin for women as part of a workshop called The Manipulative Past in the institute’s third annual Concoction Week taking place this week.

Three students – Tut Sagi, a student in the college’s department for multidisciplinary art, Avior Tzvi of the department of plastics engineering, and Valeria Simhovitz from the department of design and fashion – collaborated on the project.

Tefillin are a set of two black boxes made of hardened leather which in Jewish law are supposed to be worn by Jewish men every day during the morning prayer service.

The requirement for the workshop was to take a handmade item from ancient technology, games or tradition and to transform it into something of the present or future. Most of the participants chose to recreate an ancient game, piece of jewelry or form of technological development, from the field of games, but Sagi, Tzvi and Simhovitz decided to take something from the realm of tradition, “something that has existed for many years and is still very relevant today.”

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Spelunkers Stumble Upon Rare 2,300-Year-Old Treasure Cache

In one of the most important finds in northern Israel, three cave explorers unearth ancient coins and jewelry in stalactite cave.

By Ari Yashar for Arutz7Sheva

A month after the discovery of a massive hoard of gold treasure by divers off the coast of Caesarea, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has received reports of a find involving a cache of rare coins and silver and bronze objects 2,300 years old, in a cave in northern Israel.

According to IAA officials, this may be one of the most important archaeological discoveries in northern Israel in recent years, and requires in-depth research to decipher the secrets of the cave.

The story of the find begins two weeks ago, when Israeli Caving Club members Reuven Zakai, his son Chen, and their friend Lior Halony, journeyed into one of the largest and best-hidden stalactite caves in the north in preparation for a visit by the club.

The three spelunkered down into the cave, crawling through a narrow passage to enter it where they explored for several hours.

Chen, 21-years-old, says he forced his way into a narrow niche when he caught sight of something shining in the dark. He discovered two ancient silver coins that, it turns out, date from the reign of Alexander the Great, who conquered Israel at the start of the Hellenistic period (late 4th century BCE).

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Rabbi Bouskila’s “To Unite, Not to Divide: Rav Ouziel’s Big Sephardic Ideas”

From Sephardi Ideas Monthly

Rav Ben-Zion Meir Hai Ouziel (1880-1953) was a visionary rabbinic leader, a strong promoter of Jewish unity, and the 20th century’s most authentic embodiment of the classic Sephardic rabbinic tradition. His leadership was characterized, on the one hand, by a burning desire to abolish divisions between Jews, yet at the same time he was committed to promoting Sephardic Judaism. How did he reconcile these seemingly conflicting agendas?

As the Haham Bashi (Ottoman-appointed Chief Rabbi) of Jaffa-Tel Aviv (1911-1939), and then as the Rishon L’Zion of the pre-state Yishuv (1939-1947) and of the State of Israel (1948-1953), Rav Ouziel was officially the “Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel”. But despite holding an official title and position that seems to have ethnic and particularistic overtones, Rav Ouziel was an outspoken proponent of Jewish unity. He passionately sought to abolish the traditional ethnic divisions amongst Jews, especially in Israel. His push for Jewish unity was persistent and thorough, and he articulated his vision of Jewish unity in many forums, including public addresses, written position papers and halakhic rulings. From his earliest moments as a young rabbinic leader, all the way through to his famous “Spiritual Will to the Jewish People” written a few weeks before his death in 1953, Rav Ouziel advocated Jewish unity as an ideal position.

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Why Don't the British Like Israel?

by Alexander H. Joffe The Times of Israel/in Middle East Forum

A recent poll shows that Britons regard Israel less favorably than any other country besides North Korea. The results came as a shock to Israelis and supporters of Israel, but they shouldn't have. After all, British supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement are widespread, blood libels about the Palestinian 'genocide' and Israeli organ harvesting are heard from members of the peerage, and Israel remains one of the few countries the British royal family hasn't visited.

True, Jews are deeply integrated into British society and have felt secure for decades. But incidents of antisemitic violence have been escalating and even notables like the Jewish director of television of the BBC have expressed fear about the future of Jews in the country. Antisemitism, interwoven and often indistinguishable from anti-Zionism, has reemerged full force. New statistics on antisemitic incidents prove that the British climate is changing for the worse.

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‘By the rivers of Babylon’ exhibit breathes life into Judean exile

Never-before-showcased clay tablets documenting the first diaspora go on display at Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum

BY ILAN BEN ZION for The Times of Israel

We know they sat on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, and that they wept. But a new exhibit at Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum puts faces and names to the Judean exiles in ancient Babylonia 2,500 years ago

“By the Rivers of Babylon” showcases a collection of about 100 rare clay tablets from 6th century Mesopotamia that detail the lives of exiled Judeans living in the heartland of the Babylonian Empire. Through these mundane Akkadian legal documents written in cuneiform, scholars have breathed life back into generations of Judeans who lived in Babylon but whose names and traditions speak of a longing for Zion.

The Al-Yahudu tablets are part of a private collection that has never before gone on public display. Their provenance is unknown; they likely turned up somewhere in southern Iraq, but no one knows when. After decades on the antiquities market they ended up in the hands of a private collector, David Sofer, who offered to loan them to the Bible Lands Museum. After two years of labor, the exhibit is opening to the public on Sunday.

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