Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, was established as the capital of the Jewish kingdom by David in 1,000 BCE. Throughout millennia of dispersion, it remained eternally in the hearts of the Jewish people. Wherever they are in the world, Jews pray in the direction of Israel. In Israel, they pray in the direction of Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, they pray in the direction of the Temple Mount.
Israel has nine World Heritage Sites: Bahá’i Holy Places (Haifa and the Galilee), Biblical Tels (Megiddo, Hazor, Be’er Sheva), Incense Route (Negev), Masada, Old City of Acre, White City of Tel Aviv, Sites of Human Evolution (Mount Carmel), Caves of Maresha and Beit Guvrin (Judean Lowlands), and the Necropolis of Beit She’arim. Another 16 sites have been suggested for inclusion.
Many Jewish architects connected to the Bauhaus school in Germany fled to Tel Aviv in the 1930s, following the rise of the Nazis. Today, more than 4,000 Tel Aviv buildings make up the “White City”. It is the largest collection of Bauhaus structures of any city in the world.
The “Ingathering of the Exiles” (Kibbutz Galuyot) has seen Jews from more than 90 countries return to their indigenous homeland – the Land of Israel, where the biblical Abraham and Sarah are buried in Hebron. Genesis 23 tells how Ephron offered the land for free, but Abraham paid publicly for the land, cave and trees at Machpelah.
Measuring 20,770 square kilometers, Israel is roughly half the size of Lake Michigan. The land mass of the world’s sole Jewish state is approximately 0.165% of the total land area of the 22 nations in the Arab League.
Rebecca Affachiner sewed Israel’s first flag from a bedsheet, using a crayon to color the fabric used to fashion the blue stripes and six-pointed Magen David. She proudly displayed it on her porch when she learned that David Ben-Gurion had declared the new State of Israel on May 14, 1948. For this act, she became known as Israel’s Betsy Ross.
No other country connects its Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron) and Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut) the same way that Israel does, as a two-day event. A national televised ceremony marks the official transition from a day of somber remembrance into a day of festive celebration.
Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror will be especially poignant this year. Most of the nation will stand still – even in the middle of crossing a street – to the sounds of two sirens, one at night and one in the morning. During the day, active-duty soldiers will don their dress uniforms and stand as honor guards beside military graves, even those of soldiers who died in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.
Israel is the vegan capital of the Middle East and fourth in the world. Five percent of all Israelis do not consume animal products. In the Israel Defense Forces, approximately 1 in 18 soldiers (5.6%) is vegan. In addition to plant-based meals, the IDF offers synthetic leather boots and synthetic wool berets to its vegan troops.
