Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
26 Av 5782
August 23 2022
The Quote of the Day
“The emerging nuclear agreement is a strategic disaster.
The West, led by the Americans, has surrendered to the Iranians in almost all areas in order to get the agreement signed and take the issue off the agenda. The ones who will remain to have to deal with the problem are us because Iran will receive a license to kill and hundreds billions of dollars to invest in terrorism and regional expansion.
All that the agreement achieves at the moment is the length of two and a half years until Iran can resume its nuclear race, this time under international auspices. This is a disastrous agreement that will cause great damage not only to Israel, but to the entire region.”
A senior Mossad official yesterday expressing the opinion of Mossad head David Barnea.
The Photo of the Day
A large male ibex in a garbage dumpster in Mitzpe Ramon yesterday–actually a scene everyday.
The drama yesterday involved a young female ibex looking for food who broke her leg when she tried to jump the fence around Mitzpe’s Bereshit Hotel. A team of veterinarians rescued her.
The News on the Israeli Street
Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .
Palestinian terrorists using Molotovs, “rocks”, and IEDs attacked buses between Hizma and Anator, at the Umm Darj Junction, (line 469) on Road 55 near the Ponduk Junction, and 300 meters after Einbus Square in the direction of Hatmar Shomron.
An armed Palestinian terrorist was captured by IDF forces from the 50th Battalion near the fence of Kibbutz Migdal Oz.
A Palestinian terrorist stabbed a Chabad rabbi in Ra’anana yesterday, yelling Allahu Akbar as he did so. The rabbi is in moderate condition today with multiple stab wounds to his legs.
Palestinian terrorists fired three shots at the Psagot security fence.
Palestinian terrorists using Molotovs, “rocks”, and IEDs attacked Israeli motorists on Road 55 near Kedumim among other locations.
Border Guards working with IDF forces captured three terrorists trying to infiltrate the firing base in Tzalim.
Another senior Iranian killed in Syria . . .
General Abulfazel Alijani is reported by the Iranians to have been killed in the recent Israeli strike on Tartus.
The impending school strike . . .
Kindergarten through high school is scheduled to open on September 1, but the question is whether the classrooms will look like this:
If there are no teachers, there will be no students.
The threat of a teachers’ strike expanded overnight with reports that negotiations between the teachers’ union and the Ministry of the Treasury are going nowhere. What’s more, the group that represents high school teachers says it will join with the kindergarten and elementary school teachers.
As you can imagine, the two main issues are teacher pay and teachers’ holidays–issues that we have covered in previous blogs.
Short snippets . . .
*Tonight the first overflight of Saudi Arabia by an Israeli airline will take place when an Arkia Airlines flies nonstop to the Seychelles.
*We’re still in the middle of the summer, and the first cases of flu–which normally come in the winter–have already been reported.
*More than 3,000 Israelis have been vaccinated against monkeypox. About 75% reported side effects ranging from stiffness to severe itching.
*The Israel Postal Service now owes the Chinese Postal Service 140,000,000 million shekels. This is money that the Chinese overpaid the Israeli postal service for delivering packages. Israelis have gone slightly crazy ordering goods from Chinese websites during the Corona period.
*Just a rumor but intriguing: in the recent mini-war with Gaza, some 200 missiles fired by Islamic Jihad crashed in Gaza. Did they crash because of mechanical defects as reported, or did the IDF’s new laser system bring them down?
TODAY’S BLOG
The Major Demographic Change In Israel
Photo above: an ultra-orthodox man with six of his children–all under the age of 12–taking his family out for a Purim holiday walk in Jerusalem. His wife stayed home with their youngest children.
According to statistics published yesterday in advance of Rosh Hashana next month:
*There are currently 9.5 million people living in Israel.
*The birthrate of Israeli Arabs continues to decrease as that of Israeli Jews increases. Currently the birth rate of Israeli-Arab women is 3.0 while that Israeli Jewish women in 3.1. The obvious conclusion is that the threat that many Israelis saw concerning the Israeli-Arab segment of the population overtaking the Israeli-Jewish segment of the population is not materializing.
*Insofar as Israeli-Jewish women are concerned, the birthrate among Orthodox Jewish women is now 6.6. This is three times the rate of secular Jewish women.
*The population of Orthodox in Israel is now doubling every generation. It is now about 13% and is projected to be 26% by 2032. 24% of Israeli children under the age of 4 are now orthodox. The Bureau of Statistics believes that more than 50% of Israeli children will be orthodox as of 2065.
In sum, the major demographic change is not “the Arab takeover” that commentators have always liked to comment on—instead, it is the increasing population of Orthodox Jews in Israel.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.