Bet El Excels in…Talmud!

By Chezki Baruch on Israel National News, original article can be found here.

Translated by Hillel Fendel

Watch the Hebrew interview with English subtitles.

The International Israel Talmud Contest champion was crowned publicly yesterday: Noam Nissim Shriki, 12, of Bet El. 

Interestingly enough, his runner-up was none other than Yishai Sarig – his very own classmate from Bet El. 

The two, and the other 13 finalists from all around the country as well as the United States, competed as pairs with their fathers; one of the contestants was partner with his mother, and another – with his older brother. One father partnered with his daughter.

Ninety Years Later, Hevron's Marketplace Returns to its Jewish Owners

By Hillel Fendel
Edited by Dena Udren

Just over a month ago, Naftali Bennett was named Israel's youngest defense minister – and in perhaps his most dramatic decision since then, he issued a stark message to the municipality of Hevron that the period of "squatters' rights" it has enjoyed since the mid-1990's on Jewish-owned land – is now over!

Instead, the (Arab) mayor of Hevron was told that Israel will begin planning a new Jewish neighborhood there. Note that this mayor participated in the murder of six Jews outside Beit Hadassah in 1980; he sat in jail for only two years before being freed in a prisoner exchange.
Bennett's decision means that after years and years of legal and political bureaucratic obstacles, the area will once again become fully Jewish. The new neighborhood to be built will form Jewish territorial contiguity between the Machpelah Cave (the Cave of the Patriarchs) to the existing Avraham Avinu neighborhood. In addition to the public-use buildings to be built there, the 70 planned apartments will significantly boost the City of the Patriarchs' Jewish population, which currently numbers 750 plus another 250 yeshiva students.

Hevron

The Highest Form of Giving

By Baruch Gordon

Edited by Dena Udren

A former Bet El Yeshiva student has reached a point in his life in which he desperately needs your help. The charity that you can give him is truly the highest level of giving, according to the Rambam (Maimonides).

The Rambam lists eight levels of charity, each greater than the next. The greatest level, above which there is no greater, is to support a fellow Jew by endowing him with a gift (or finding employment for him) which strengthens his hand so that he will not need to be dependent upon others.

Y came to Israel from the US alone and reached Yeshivat Bet El, proving to be a talented yeshiva student. After marrying a nice Jewish girl, he got a patent on a device he invented which was purchased by the US Navy for use in training.

Meet Rabbi Erez and Yael Yosef-Chai

Rav Erez and Yael Yosef-Chai live in Beit El with their four children, and love it here! Here they are, in their own words:

Translated by Hillel Fendel, interviewed and edited by Dena Udren

The Yosef-Chai Family

Q. Erez, where did you grow up?

A. I grew up in Kfar Pines, a moshav near Hadera; I would say it's a "partially agricultural" moshav. I had a very happy childhood there, being part of the Bnei Akiva youth movement, and walking around the forests nearby… It was altogether fun.

My father was born in the Cochin region of India (also known as Kochi, a city in southwest India's coastal Kerala state), and my mother was born in Israel, the daughter of Ashkenazi immigrants; her father was a Gerrer Hassid, a man of total belief and trust in Hashem, which truly helped him get through very difficult times. He would always visit his Rebbe, especially on special occasions such as Israel Independence Day [later in Israel]; it was the Rebbe who told him and his family to leave Poland, before the Holocaust, and come to Israel. My mother's mother came from Germany; her father, who was a shochet, was beaten by Nazis, and forbidden from practicing his profession; he finally found work after a whole year - but only in Turkey, from there they made Aliyah – so that's how they were saved from the Holocaust. Here in Israel, the Chazon Ish ate from his shechitah (ritual slaughtering).