Category: February 2019

Standing up to the darkness and the shifting winds of change that threaten to destroy our youth By: Ilan Preskowsky The town of Lakewood, New Jersey is known for being home to one of the United States’ most significant Orthodox Jewish communities; a community centred around nothing less than the world-renowned Beth Medrash Govoha, the largest yeshiva outside of Israel. Unfortunately, so prestigious a community is hardly exempt from a problem that challenges communities throughout the Jewish world. Literally hundreds of teenagers and young adults from this yeshiva community have…

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Teaching our children how to cope with life’s challenges By: Paula Levin Lara Noik and Tova Goldstein are extremely busy professionals, wives, and mothers, but despite all their commitments they are plotting a revolution. “We want to take over the world…starting with Glenhazel,” jokes Goldstein. Both qualified social workers, the two are energised and motivated to do far more than is possible in a day because they have a calling: to address the mental health crisis affecting adolescents. “Schools across the country are seeing an increase in mental illness, addiction,…

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Sharing the inspiration and hopeful story that is Israel By Chandrea Serebro If ever you wanted to hear good news about Israel, skip the small fry and head straight to thought leader and author Avi Jorisch, who took it upon himself to shout it out to the world. It came to him with a bang, quite literally, when both he and the people of Israel spent the summer of 2014 rushing in and out of bomb shelters during the Israel-Gaza conflict Operation Protective Edge. “This experience had a deep impact…

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By Chandrea Serebro Two Israeli start-ups (Nucleix and Medial EarlySign) are making great strides developing blood tests for diagnosing early stage lung cancer. Now, Savicell, a third, is achieving a 91% success rate. Early detection gives the patient a 50-80% recovery chance. At late stage it is only 4%. Israeli start-up Scade Medical has patented a prototype scanner to diagnose early stage melanoma. BlueSky is based on DOSI (differential optical spectro-polarimetric imaging) technology invented by Ofir Aharon, whose mother contracted melanoma. It has already saved seven lives. Israeli start-up Diagnoz.me has a…

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Remembering Ari Fuld, a life that continues to inspire, and the beautiful song written about him by a South African youth By Chandrea Serebro Israel lost its lion last year. World Jewry, including South Africa, mourned on 16 September and everyday thereafter. The day that Ari Fuld, a 45-year-old American-born Israeli, was murdered by a 16-year-old Palestinian terrorist, Khalil Jabarin, in Gush Etzion. With his dying breath, after sustaining mortal stab wounds, the Lion drew his weapon, scaled a fence in pursuit of his attacker, and shot the terrorist to…

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Making dreams of living and learning in Israel a reality for South African teens By Ilan Preskovsky It may sound like a ludicrous pipe dream, but for South African Jewish teens between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, an opportunity awaits to finish off their high school careers in Israel with the added benefits of a free initial flight to Israel and fully-subsidised tuition, medical aid, room and board, pocket money, and a whole lot more. Naale (a Hebrew acronym meaning “children coming before parents”) is an international programme that,…

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