Weekly News Items from the Israeli Press, September 13, 2012

JFNA in the Israeli Press

Fostering ‘tikkun olam’ among America’s Jewish teens

(Jpost) (JFNA) Love in action: Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards grants Jewish teens $36,000 each for volunteer service projects that embody the spirit of tikkun olam.

JFNA Partners in the Israeli Press

Israel Action Network making High Holidays outreach effort to 5,000 rabbis

(Times of Israel) New initiative will include sermon inserts and a resource guide for educating congregants that will promote peace between Israel and its neighbors.

A High Holiday challenge

(Times of Israel) Israel faces a relentless assault on its legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state.

Righting a geographical wrong

(Times of Israel) A new advanced studies program in the north and south gives students the opportunities that, until now, only big city kids had.

Security

School canceled in Beersheba and Ashdod following overnight rocket attacks

(Times of Israel) Three treated for shock as two Grads hit southern towns; empty Netivot house suffers direct hit.

Civil Society

The invisible men (and women) on the unemployment line

(Haaretz) Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz brags that Israel's jobless rate is one of the lowest in the world. But what he doesn't tell you is the numbers of people who are underemployed or have no prospects of finding relevant jobs.

Social Protests

Israeli Arabs protest outside US Embassy in Tel Aviv

(Times of Israel) Dozens gather to demonstrate peacefully against anti-Islam film; MKs attack ‘Western Islamophobia’.

Aliyah and Immigration

Lone soldiers — anything but alone

(Times of Israel) Thousands of selfless and idealistic young people make aliya to Israel on their own each year and enlist in the IDF.

Religious Pluralism in Israel

Beit Shemesh: Why Jews cannot remain silent

(Jpost) As a resident of Beit Shemesh, I would be pleased if Mayor Moshe Abutbul would respond to the civil wars which are tearing at the seams of a city and at the heart of a Jewish community.

Israeli Periphery

$15m. science, tech project open in Negev, Galilee

(Jpost) Gov't, private sector officials launch project aimed at enhancing education in underprivileged Jewish, Arab communities.

Jewish World

Global Jewish population grows by 88,000 over past year

(Times of Israel) One of 514 people on Earth is Jewish; at 0.65%, population growth rate is well below world average.

Revolutionize the rabbinate

(Ynet) Op-ed: Tzohar rabbi says Chief Rabbinate failed in its duty to bring secular, religious Jews closer together.

Education

Report: Israel is the Second-Most Educated Country

(Israel National News) The “Education at a Glance 2012” report finds that 64% of Israelis reach higher education, second only to Canada.

Harvard’s best-kept secret

(Times of Israel) Myths about the inaccessibility of an Ivy League education are keeping many highly qualified Israelis from applying — and that’s a shame.

Israeli Economy

52% of Israelis go into overdraft once a year

(Haaretz) Around 52% of bank account holders find themselves in overdraft at least once a year, and 21% of them are in the red most of the time, according to the survey of 1,200 people.

Sport

Ex-pilot wounded in Lebanon brings home Paralympic gold

(Israel Hayom) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells former Apache pilot Noam Gershony: "The State of Israel embraces you for your incredible achievement."

Op-Eds and Opinion Pieces from the Israel Press

Ma'ariv asserts that the instability in Libya is having a direct effect on Israel since, "It has led, among other things, to the smuggling of weapons into Sinai and the Gaza Strip." The author speculates that the US might yet mount cruise missile attacks on terrorist targets in Libya the way it has done in Yemen.

Yisrael Hayom says that, "From time to time a ray of wisdom shines on the economic doings of the state. And so it was of late in a proposal by the institutional bodies to the managers of companies that are unable to pay their debts, to lower their salaries to the level of NIS 50,000 (which in itself is quite a salary)." The author contends that, "There is a serious moral problem in the economy. Giant companies which are incapable of fully paying their debts know very well how to pay out exorbitant salary benefits to managers and owners. Something is wrong here and does not meet the test of logic or the test of integrity. And in the business sector, both logic and integrity hold a degree of importance, even when everything is done legally."