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Hadas Tzaban at the Ilan Ramon Center: ‘When I heard about the opportunity to conduct a research project at the Ramon Center... I jumped at the opportunity to broaden my horizons.’ Photo: Dani Machlis/BGU

By  Orli Gold-Haklay   www.JPost.com

Hadas Tzaban, an 18-year-old high school student from the development town of Netivot, recently won first place in the international “First Step to Nobel Prize” research project competition held in Warsaw, Poland. To compete, high school students submit projects – in Hadas’s case her final matriculation project – which are then judged by professors of physics for originality and academic excellence.

Tzaban prepared her project as part of a special program for high school students interested in physics at the Ilan Ramon Youth Physics Center at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, under the supervision of Prof. Natan Kleeorin from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Three other students from the center took second place in the competition. “Israel is just a tiny dot on the globe, but we are proving that we are a much bigger dot on the scientific map,” says center director Prof. Victor Melamed. “These talented kids are our future.”

The Ilan Ramon Youth Physics Center, on the Marcus Family Campus in Beersheba, was established in 2007 by the Rashi Foundation of Israel, collaborating with the Department of Physics to advance hands-on learning activities to high-school pupils from Kiryat Gat to Eilat. The center, named in honor of Israel’s first astronaut, who is originally from Beersheba, is located in the Sacta Rashi Physics Building and includes sophisticated teaching laboratories, a planetarium and rooftop observatory.

In addition to offering applied studies for all southern high-school pupils matriculating in physics, the center also assists pupils in preparing individual projects in physics, and identifies and advances those who are gifted. It aims to increase the number of pupils who take physics at a matriculation level and improve their matriculation results; establish and operate physics centers in schools; and ultimately increase the number of physics and engineering students in academic institutions, explains Melamed.

The fascination for physics runs in the Tzaban family: two years ago, Hadas’ older sister Mor, now 20, took second place for her research paper in the same competition. Originally from Tunisia, the Tzaban family is well known in Netivot. Hadas and Mor’s great grandfather, Rephael Hadir Tzaban, was the town’s head rabbi. Hadas’s father owns a printing press and her mother is a first-grade teacher.

“My parents have always encouraged us to pursue our interests, to work hard in school and excel,” says Hadas, one of five girls. “Natural sciences has always fascinated me and that’s why I joined the physics track at school. When I heard about the opportunity to conduct a research project at the Ramon Center, and I saw how much Mor enjoyed it, I jumped at the opportunity to broaden my horizons.”

Hadas began her research project on “Turbulent Convection in Sciences and Nature” in November of 2008 and completed it this past January. Although professors at the center as well as at the Weizman Institute in Rehovot had told her they were impressed with her work, she never expected to actually win the contest. “One day, I sat down at the computer to check my e-mails. When I read the announcement about the prize, I couldn’t believe it! I wasn’t sure I read it right, so I kept reading it again and again to make sure!”

As part of her prize, Hadas will be traveling to Warsaw, Poland, in November of this year to spend a month pursuing her research. Upon her return home, she will resume her national service, where she plans to help organize after-school activities for school children in Jerusalem’s Katamonim neighborhood – “not teaching them physics, just helping them and taking a ‘time-out’ before I pursue my studies.

“Physics just does it for me,” says Hadas, who hopes to either go to medical school or study at BGU’s Department of Physics. “To me, its just amazing, to see the theories of nature’s wonders come to life. The Ramon Center really makes you want to study. It lets kids get involved. If it wasn’t for the Center, I wouldn’t have done any research, and I never would have believed I could get this far.”

Hadas insists the physics gene isn’t hereditary, “and it isn’t something my mother puts in the food, either!” she says. But the facts speak for themselves: her younger sister, Chen, 16, will join the physics track at school and begin studying at the Ramon Center this fall.

The Ilan Ramon Center is the unique brainchild of the Rashi Foundation, driven by the realization that physics is the key to all advanced sciences. The foundation decided to create a center for youth to develop physics in the Negev and try to get more young people passionate about this area, says Melamed. “The Rashi Foundation does things very scientifically: first they targeted their objective; then they went full-force ahead to make sure it was accomplished.”

Melamed, a physics teacher with many years of experience in local Beersheba high schools, says that the sooner pupils are exposed to physics, the better. “Kids need to taste and smell science, and physics is the ultimate gateway to all sciences. I think anyone can get excited about science if he is exposed to it the right way. It’s hard to say which kids have a ‘natural tendency’ for physics, but there are definitely a lot of talented kids out there who are highly motivated. They have a natural curiosity that just needs to be cultivated, and at the center that’s what we do.”

The center is already yielding results. Over the past three years, there has been a phenomenal 25 percent increase in high school physics track pupils involved in the center, says Melamed, who attributes this dramatic leap to the center and its exciting activities: “Pupils at the center tell their peers what a great learning experience they’re having, and it makes more and more of them want to pursue this path.”

www.Israel21c.org

In the U.S., the brilliant autumn foliage with its variations on red, orange, brown, and yellow never fails to delight the eye. In Israel and Europe, however, it’s mostly a one-color spread of yellow.

Researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel and the University of Kuopio in Finland have a new theory that stretches back 35 million years to solve the color riddle.

Their research, published in the journal New Phytologist, posits that during a series of ice ages and dry spells many tree species began an evolutionary process of producing red leaves to ward off insects.

In North America, north to south mountain chains enabled plant and animal “migration” with the advance and retreat of the ice, and the trees’ insect “enemies” migrated along with them.

In Europe and Israel, the mountains reach from east to west, so no protected areas were created. Many tree species did not survive the severe cold and the insects that depended on them for survival also perished.

At the end of the ice ages, most tree species that did survive in these areas had no need to cope with the insects because they were extinct, and therefore, over time, they no longer produced red leaves.

Agence France-Presse (AFP)

PARIS — A Paris swimming pool refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a “burqini,” a swimsuit covering most of the body, officials said recently, adding to tensions over Muslim dress in France.

The "burqini" was designed for Muslim women who want to swim without revealing their bodies

The incident came as French lawmakers conduct hearings on whether to ban the burqa after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the head-to-toe body covering and veil was “not welcome” in France, home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority.

Officials in the Paris suburb of Emerainville said they let the woman swim in the pool in July wearing the “burqini,” designed for Muslim women who want to swim without revealing their bodies. [see pictures below]

But when she returned in August, they decided to apply hygiene rules and told her she could not swim if she insisted on wearing the garment, which resembles a wetsuit with built-in hood.

Pool staff “reminded her of the rules that apply in all (public) swimming pools which forbid swimming while clothed,” said Daniel Guillaume, an official with the pool management.

Le Parisien newspaper said the woman, identified by her first name Carole, was a French convert to Islam and that she was determined to go to the courts to challenge the decision.

“Quite simply, this is segregation,” the newspaper quoted her as saying. “I will fight to try to change things. And if I see that the battle is lost, I cannot rule out leaving France.”

A woman surfs a website which sells "burqinis", a swimsuit that covers most of the body

The newspaper ran a photo of the woman sporting her three-piece “burqini” which she said she purchased in Dubai during a recent holiday.

“I bought it thinking that I could enjoy swimming without having to uncover myself,” she said.

Local mayor Alain Kelyor said “all this has nothing to do with Islam,” adding that the “burqini” was “not an Islamic swimsuit; that type of suit does not exist in the Koran,” the Muslim holy book.

France has set up a special panel of 32 lawmakers to consider whether a law should be enacted to bar Muslim women from wearing the burqa.

In an address to parliament in June, Sarkozy said the burqa was not a symbol of religious faith but a sign of women’s “subservience” and declared that it was “not welcome” in staunchly secular France.

The country has had a long-running debate on how far it is willing to go to accommodate Islam without undermining the tradition of separating church and state, enshrined in a flagship 1905 law.

In 2004, it passed a law banning headscarves (hijab)or any other “conspicuous” religious symbols in state schools to defend secularism.

The burqa debate in France has drawn chilling warnings from Al-Qaeda that it was ready to “take revenge for the honor of our daughters and sisters.”

Communist MP Andre Gerin, who heads the National Assembly’s burqa commission, called the “burqini” ridiculous and said pool administrators were right.

“We can’t allow this. This is proof that there is a political agenda behind such dress,” Gerin told Le Parisien.

By Ludwig Schneider, Israel Today

Most of the Jewish prayers are brachot (benedictions or blessings), in which the one praying blesses God. Blessings begin with this formula:

Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu,

Melech ha’olam…

Blessed are You, O Lord our

God, King of the universe…

There are specific blessings for all occasions—for bread and wine on the Sabbath, for festivals like Passover and Hanukkah, and for simchot (joyous occasions) like bar mitzvahs and weddings.

Any individual Jew can pray alone in his room or at the Western Wall, but when the prayer occurs in the context of a religious service, there must be at least 10 men praying together, or a minyan. This is derived from Abraham’s struggle in prayer for the rescue of Sodom, going down to 10 men (Genesis 18:32).

In accordance with the daily sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem, three prayer times were established, which were later taken up for the service in the synagogue:

Shacharit—The Morning Prayer

Mincha—The Afternoon Prayer

Ma’ariv—The Evening Prayer

At all three prayer times, these two prayers are recited: the Shmoneh Esrei (18 benedictions), and the confession of faith, Shema Yisrael, the “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

The prayers are mostly from the Psalms. However, when the word sela appears, the one praying can add his own extemporaneous prayers and bring his personal requests before the Lord. The sela acts as a finale in the sense of “God is my final help.”

In addition, one is to pray after getting up in the morning and before going to bed, as well as before and after meals and on other set occasions. These prayers are contained in the common prayer book, the Siddur. The word siddur comes from seder (order) because the book gives directions about what to pray and when.

For the Jewish festivals there is the Machzor (cycles), which has several volumes and regulates the cycle of prayers throughout the year. Since the Jews were scattered among the nations and spoke many different languages, the Hebrew text is often printed on the right-hand page of the Siddur while a translation appears on the left-hand page.

A religious Jewish man wears a kippah (skullcap) when he prays. The word kippah means cap, which in turn can be linked with kapparah (atonement), implying that “I am covered by a propitiation.” A religious woman wears a headscarf when praying.

The men also wear a prayer shawl or tallit (Numbers 15:37-41; Deuteronomy 22:12), which has tzitziot (tassels) on each of its four corners. In the New Testament, this term is often translated as the “hem” of the garment.

During morning prayers observant men bind prayer straps or tefillin (phylacteries) to their arms and foreheads. Inside the small tefillin box, which is tied to the forehead, are the following texts written on parchment: Exodus 13:1-10; 11-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21.

Jews always pray facing Jerusalem, and those who live in the Holy City pray facing the Temple Mount. In places of Jewish worship and in private homes abroad, a mizrach (a decorated plaque with a blessing, often Psalm 16:8-11) is often placed on the wall facing toward Jerusalem, indicating which way to face in prayer.

The posture of prayer includes bowing down, particularly when the name of God is spoken, or a spreading out of one’s hands before the Lord. Those who wish to demonstrate particular reverence will cover their heads with their prayer shawl or move back three steps. Placing your hands in your pockets while praying is considered irreverent.

While some holy days like Yom Kippur are solemn, prayer is supposed to be joyous, especially on the Sabbath and other festivals. For instance, on the festival of Simchat Torah (Rejoicing in the Law), congregants rejoice like a bridegroom over the bride, dancing around the synagogue while holding the Torah scrolls in their arms.

Outward appearance is not the key factor when praying; however, the outward appearance should mirror one’s inward attitude.

By Dudi Cohen, www.YNetNews.com

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday, Sept 21,  he was proud he had managed to enrage the West by denying the Holocaust during a speech he made in Tehran in honor of Jerusalem day [actually, al-Quds Day, the last Friday of Ramadan when Muslims protest Zionism. Begun in 1979] .

Ahmadinejad was quoted by the Iranian News Agency (IRNA) as saying that the angering of “professional man-slayers is a source of pride for us and will not stand in our way”, apparently in reference to Israel and the West.

“The more these imperialists, enemies of humanity and those whose hearts have no love for the human kind run wild, screaming and throwing accusations, we know our path is correct,” said Ahmadinejad.

Al-Quds day protest against Israel in Tehran (Photo: AFP)

During his speech last Friday in Tehran University, the president once again questioned the existence of the Holocaust: “If the Holocaust was planned by the west, why won’t they let anyone investigate it? They have turned the holocaust into a black box and won’t let anyone open and examine it…if this event is so important why don’t they let us expose the truth to the whole world?”

Ahmadinejad continued to attack Israel, saying that “Zionists are the biggest criminals in history, and resisting them is a national duty, a religious commandment and a human obligation. The Zionist regime is a tree with rotten roots.”

“It is obvious this deceptive regime was founded to fulfill colonialist aspirations, and that there is no logic behind its establishment,” added the president, to which the crowd replied: “Death to Israel.”

Ahmadinejad’s words received condemnations from around the world; Britain announced that the Iranian President’s Holocaust denial is repulsive and is a sign of ignorance, adding that the national community must stand against him united.

The German foreign minister said that Ahmadinejad brings shame to his country, while the White House said his words only increase Iran’s isolation from the rest of the world.

Russia, Iran’s ally, also condemned Ahmadinejad’s speech, saying that “his words oppose the truth and are completely unacceptable. The attempt to deny history, especially in the year that marks 70 years to the beginning of the war, desecrates the memory of the victims and all who fought against fascism.”

Sir Nicholas Winton, 100, with fans at Liverpool Street Station, London. Photo: PA

By Stephen Adams, www.Telegraph.co.uk

Seventy years ago they rode in silence, travelling on trains from Prague, not knowing if they would ever see their parents and siblings again. None of them did.

But by virtue of the foresight, humanity, and sheer bloody-mindedness of a young British stockbroking clerk called Nicholas Winton, 669 Jewish children were saved from the clutches of the Nazis.

Last September, 22 of them were reunited with their 100-year-old savior – now Sir Nicholas – who has come to be known as the “British Schindler.”

A steam engine specially requisitioned to re-enact the last stage of their journey pulled into the very same platform at Liverpool Station in London where as virtual orphans they had disembarked in 1939.

The emotional ceremony marked what is likely to be the final chapter in the odyssey begun by Sir Nicholas as a 29-year-old.

He was packing to go skiing just before Christmas in 1938 when he received a call from a friend working in a refugee camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

“Cancel your holiday,” said the friend, Martin Blake. “I need you in Prague. Don’t bring your skis.”

The young banker was so moved by what he saw that he immediately set about persuading the British authorities to let in refugee children. The response was sluggish. But after much work by Winton, a Christian whose family had Jewish roots, the paperwork for each child was painstakingly put in order.

Finally the wheels began to move.

Between March and August 1939, eight trains carried to Britain 669 children who otherwise would probably have perished in the death camps. Fifteen thousand Czechoslovakian children died in the war.

Three weeks ago, on September 4, Sir Nicholas, who was knighted in 2002, stepped off the Peppercorn A1 Pacific class steam engine to loud applause from those he had saved, now grey-haired, and their families.

The train had travelled from Harwich in Essex, containing 22 evacuees about 150 other passengers, on the last leg of the 800 mile journey from Prague.

Each survivor was given a moment to talk to Sir Nicholas.

Speaking to the crowd, Sir Nicholas, from Maidenhead, Berks, joked: “This is much harder work that it was 70 years ago.

“Seventy years ago it was a question of getting a lot of little children together with the families who were going to look after them.

“It all worked out very well and it’s wonderful that it did work out, because after all history could have made it very different.”

He added: “It’s wonderful to see you all after so many years – don’t leave it quite so long until we meet here again.”

His grandson, Laurence Watson, 21, who recently graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in physics, spoke of his pride at his grandfather’s actions.

He said: “There has always been bad things going on in the world and there has always been wars and conflicts.

“You see it every day in the newspapers. Very occasionally you meet someone who has read those same articles but who decides to do something about it.

“That’s what my granddad did. He said ‘Something needs doing and I am going to do it’.”

The timing of the reunion contains a sad epitaph, however.

The ninth train, containing 250 children, was due to leave Prague on 3 September 1939, the day Britain declared war.

The Germans never let it leave the station, and most of the children never lived to see 1945.

Almost as remarkable as the scheme itself, and a mark of Sir Nicholas’s modesty, was that he chose to conceal his achievements for decades.

It was only when he wife Greta unearthed a briefcase in the attic contained lists of the children he saved and letters to the parents did he admit his part.

He said in 1999: “My wife didn’t know about it for 40 years after our marriage, but there are all kinds of things you don’t talk about even with your family.

“Everything that happened before the war actually didn’t feel important in the light of the war itself.”

He also rejected the comparison with Oskar Schindler, who saved about 1,200 Jews in the war, saying unlike the German his actions never put him in danger.

By Michael Ledeen– www.PajamasMedia.com

By Amy Teibel, Associated Press

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanon on Sunday that Israel “will not hold back” when attacked and holds the Lebanese government responsible for any assault on his country.

Netanyahu delivered the warning after two rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Friday. Israel responded immediately with artillery fire, and the exchange ratcheted up persisting tensions between the two countries.

“We view this very gravely,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet. “We will not hold back when Israeli territory comes under fire, and will not reconcile ourselves to missile fire or any other form of terror directed at Israeli citizens.”

It was not immediately known who fired the rockets Friday. But radical Palestinian factions in Lebanon have been blamed in four firings at Israel this year.

The Israel-Lebanon border has been tense since Israel mounted a monthlong war against Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas in the summer of 2006. More than 1,200 people in Lebanon and 160 Israelis died in that conflict, which ended in a United Nations-brokered truce.

On Sunday, Netanyahu put the onus of maintaining the cease-fire squarely on the shoulders of the Lebanese government.

“We see it responsible for all these violations and hostilities directed at our territory that originate from Lebanese soil,” he said.

Hezbollah has a large rocket arsenal, but is not believed to have used them against Israel since the 2006 fighting. It has denied involvement in previous rocket attacks on Israel.

But friction between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated as Lebanese politicians wrangle over the formation of a new government. The Hezbollah-led opposition would likely be a part of that cabinet.

In mid-July, a suspected Hezbollah arms depot exploded near the Israeli border. Israel said this was proof the group was rearming and stashing weapons in populated villages.

Lebanon’s An-Nahar newspaper reported Sunday that the U.N. force in Lebanon, which was beefed up significantly after the war to monitor the border, had been warned of a possible attack 10 days earlier.

The U.N. force relayed this information to the Lebanese army two days before the attack, the report said.

A spokesman for the U.N. force, Milos Strugar, said an investigation under way “is pointing in the direction of some extremist groups.” He did not elaborate.

www.online.WJS.com   Wall Street Journal

In this Aug. 12, 2009 file photo, an Israeli activist held a banner of Israeli soldier Sgt. Gilad Schalit at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier seized by Palestinian militants more than three years ago described his captivity as an “intolerable and inhumane nightmare” in a handwritten 2006 letter to his parents made public on Wednesday.

In carefully printed script, Sgt. Gilad Shalit reported deteriorating health and deep depression, and made an anguished appeal to the Israeli government to release him from his “closed and solitary prison.”

Sgt. Shalit, now 23 years old, wrote the 14-line letter three months after gunmen affiliated with the Gaza Strip’s Islamic Hamas rulers captured him in a cross-border raid. The existence of the letter had been known, but his parents hadn’t published its contents.

It was leaked to the Israeli media ahead of the publication of a new book that purports through militant sources to chronicle his captivity and Israel’s unsuccessful efforts to trade him for Palestinian prisoners it holds.

Sgt. Shalit’s captors haven’t allowed anyone to see him. Three letters and an audio tape relayed to his parents have been the only signs of life from him since he was seized.

“My health is deteriorating from day to day, particularly my mental health, and this causes me much depression,” Sgt. Shalit wrote in the letter, which was carried by Israeli media outlets. “I am waiting for this intolerable and inhumane nightmare of mine to end, to be released from this lonely and closed prison.”

“I ask of my government … to do everything it can to win my release as quickly as possible, because everyday that passes hurts me more,” he added.

Some of the letter’s contents may have been dictated by the militants holding him. Sgt. Shalit refers to his captors as “mujahedeen,” writing the Arabic word for “holy warriors” in Hebrew letters. He also uses the Arabic name for the border crossing where he was captured.

In exchange for Sgt. Shalit, Hamas officials have demanded that Israel release hundreds of long-serving Palestinian prisoners, including masterminds of attacks that killed Israeli citizens. Israel has so far balked, and three years of negotiations through Egyptian and more recently, German, mediators have failed to wrest a compromise.

Hamas officials had no comment Wednesday on the indirect negotiations.

By Hillel Fendel, www.IsraelNationalNews.com