RESIDENTS OF Baka took advantage of the fact that President Shimon Peres was visiting the Efrata School with Lupolianski at the opening of the school year, and appealed to both of them against the change in traffic regulations in the area. Tzvika Livne, representing the neighborhood, handed protest letters to the president and the mayor with the request that the new traffic regulations that pose a threat to the safety of children be revoked.
ONE OF the most difficult things for dieters is resisting the buffet table at a hotel. Still, there are some people who have iron will power. Case in point is 20-year-old footballer Toto Tamuz, one of the stars of Betar Jerusalem, and a member of Israel's National Team who while vacationing at Astral Village in Eilat, steered clear of the buffet table. More than that, Tamuz found his way to the kitchen to consult with the chef to make sure that those food items that were not visibly fattening did not contain ingredients harmful to athletes.
Many of the children vacationing with their parents instantly recognized the star player and asked to be photographed with him as did the hotel's general manager, Uri Shiran, who though accustomed to hosting celebrities, was nonetheless just as excited as the kids.
WHEN SHE celebrated her 100th birthday five years ago, Miriam Pollak, a resident of the Ramat Tamir-Neve Hadar retirement center, was feted by her family, who showed up in large numbers, and of course, she invited the staff and several other members to join in the festivities. This year, as she was approaching her 105th birthday, her family began making plans for another party. But Pollak said that since she was a credit to the care provided at Ramat Tamir, it was the protected living facility that should host the party.
The powers-that-be at Ramat Tamir agreed. Among the guests were Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski and Prof. Yonatan Halevi, the director of Shaare Zedek Medical Center, who spoke about healthy ageing and the way to a long life. Incidentally at least one other Jerusalemite, Bertha Porush, is almost the same age. Porush, who lives with her daughter and son-in-law Naomi and Isi Leibler, will be 105 next month.
ON THE final day of the seventh annual Sulha, a three-day festival that took place in Latrun last week, Prof. Rabbi Mark Gopin delivered a message from the Syrian mufti. Gopin has met with the mufti a number of times, and was asked on his last visit to Syria to pass a message to Israel and the Palestinians.
"The dream is to establish peace in the region based on good neighborliness. I deliver to Muslims, Jews and Christians in the Holy Land my blessings for cooperative action and believe that if enough people want peace and make small steps in its direction, everything is possible," wrote the Syrian mufti.
Gopin said that during his visits to Syria, he had met not only with the mufti but with other religious representatives. "They respected me as a rabbi and I had the rare opportunity to speak in front of large audiences," he said, adding that "statesmen understand today that the central way to open diplomatic channels is through spiritual and religious figures."
In addition to the message from Syria, a remarkable meeting took place at the Sulha between the fathers of two children, Palestinian and Israeli, who remain interconnected. In 2005, Ahmed Ismail Khatib, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, was killed by IDF fire outside of Jenin, after soldiers mistook his toy gun for a real one. His organs were donated by his family to six individuals desperately in need of transplants. His heart was donated to a 12-year-old Israeli from a Druze family, and his liver was donated to a 66-year-old Israeli woman. In Latrun, the fathers of both Ahmed and the heart recipient met and spent time together.
ISRAEL RADIO's Yaron Enosh is well known for his love of Greek music and culture, and like fellow Grecophile Shimon Parnas, not only conducts Greek programs on radio and television, but also has a Greek variety show with which he tours the country. The two men are also frequent visitors to Greece, and Parnas also leads tour groups to Greece.
After moderating 150 performances of the show "Between Athens and Salonika," Enosh is coming out with a new show of Greek love songs sung by women in which the lyrics vividly depict the relationship between men and women in Greek song, culture and mythology. The new show will debut at Beit Shmuel on September 11 with singers Dorit Farkash and Nitza Tarmin. The musical program will be interspersed with anecdotes by Enosh.
