City Notes: Acre hosts ‘special olympics’ on Good Deeds Day
A roundup of local affairs.
By COMPILEDTAMARA ZIEVEVisitors at Beersheba’s wine festival, Salute 2015, enjoy the beverages and the atmosphere.(photo credit: Courtesy)
NORTH The Acre Municipality held special events in honor of Good Deeds Day on Tuesday in cooperation with the Ruach Tova organization. The highlight of the day was the opening of a new park in the city, which offers unique and challenging activities for hundreds of youths with special needs, alongside their families.Under the banner “Special Olympics,” activities comprised 12 sports stations operated by some 200 volunteers and staff to help people with special needs participate in sporting activities. Acre Mayor Shimon Lankri said he was pleased that the city was fully participating in the annual day.“Good Deeds Day constitutes a significant contribution to improving Israeli society,” he said prior to the event. “And I call on the public to join and volunteer on this day.”There was also a variety of activities such as painting the homes of Holocaust survivors and of disadvantaged families; working on community gardens and courtyards; collecting food for Passover for needy families; and refurbishing youth clubs. Magen David Adom, Shalem movement volunteers, a network of community centers, community activists and youth movements took part in the activities.Poriya hospital runs children’s life-saving courses Nurses are giving specialized children’s life-saving courses at Poriya Medical Center near Tiberias, the Local website reported this week. The initiative began after pediatric nurses Galit David and Tami Azoulay took a special training course given by the American Heart Association. After completing the training, they began to give eight-hour courses on CPR and emergency treatment for everyone in the medical center who works with children.“This training is very important because the treatment and approach for children is different from that of adults. The training includes practice on special resuscitation dolls and simulating emergency situations such as shock, arrhythmias and proper CPR in children,” the website quoted David as saying.Fourteen members from various department take part in each course.CENTER Two people with gunshot wounds found in car Magen David Adom reported on Sunday evening that it was treating two people who were found in their car wounded by gunfire on Highway 4 between Herzliya and Givat Shmuel.MDA took to hospital a 24-year-old man in serious condition who had sustained a gunshot wound to his upper body. A woman who was in the car was lightly wounded with a lower body injury, MDA said. The circumstances of the incident were being investigated.Twelve arrested on suspicion of sexually harassing minors Police arrested 12 suspects from around the country on Sunday morning on suspicion of sexual harassment of minors on online social media networks. In the framework of the investigation, police officers created virtual characters of minors online under different nicknames and entered chat rooms. More than 30 suspects made contact with the virtual minors and committed serious crimes of sexual harassment, even after it was made clear to them that the minors were 11 or 12 years old.
During the chats, some of the suspects sent links to sexual content and nude pictures of themselves and performed indecent acts in front of Webcams. Some of the suspects sought to move the conversation to the telephone, which was then conducted by a female officer posing as a minor. One suspect offered hundreds of shekels in return for sex, and another suggested sex in “rooms like hotel rooms,” police said.The suspects were identified and arrested and taken for questioning over a series of allegations that included attempted rape, attempting indecent acts on a minor and attempting sexual harassment of minors under the age of 15.Memorial for Amnon Lipkin-Shahak inaugurated in Modi’in Last Wednesday, March 18, the birthday of the late Lt.-Gen. (res.) Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, the 15th IDF chief of staff, the Modi’in-Maccabim Reut Municipality dedicated a site in his memory. The project to commemorate Lipkin-Shahak was developed in cooperation with Lipkin-Shahak’s son Gil and the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund to rehabilitate Cypress Hill. The lookout point will be used by children of the city who can visit the site and learn about the heritage of the city and the State of Israel.Lipkin-Shahak, also served as tourism minister from 1999 to 2001 and transportation minister from 2000 to 2001, was a resident of Modi’in-Maccabim Reut. He died at age 68 after a prolonged battle with leukemia.Third lane opened between Netanya and Havatzelet A third lane was opened this week between Netanya and the Havatzelet interchange, in each direction. The Netanya Municipality announced a planned connection between Einstein Street and Highway 2, which will enable a second exit from northern Netanya to the highway.Ten mallard chicks hatch in Hayarkon Park Ten mallard chicks recently hatched in the winter pool in Hayarkon Park in north Tel Aviv. The park was recently restored by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality and is thus an inviting site for many animals. Next weekend there will be a guided tour of the blossoming site, led by ecologist Liav Shalem.Bat Yam youth center offers teens free theater workshops Following its success, the Migdalor Eilat youth center in the Ramat Yosef neighborhood of Bat Yam will open an additional group, offering theater workshops to teenagers. The first workshop, which consisted of 15 teenagers, included seven sessions led by Lirit Belvan. The workshop delved into the creative field, behind the scenes experiences and the process an actor undergoes. In addition, there were two other sessions led by actress Snait Ben-Gaash.The center offers youngsters a variety of artistic workshops, a music room, singing and music lessons, a cooking course, martial arts classes, a volunteer group and a dog training course. The theater workshop is being run through a cooperation between the municipality and a project called Culture for the Periphery run by Shaham – the actors’ organization in Israel. Youth can participate in the workshops free of charge.SOUTH Police nab seven in car-theft investigation Police from the Lahav 443 unit arrested seven suspects following a months-long undercover investigation into stolen vehicles. Police suspected that a number of southern residents had been working with residents of the center and stolen car chop shops in the Palestinian Authority, had stolen a large number of vehicles from all over Israel and brought them to the chop shop to dismantle them and sell the parts.The police searched the chop shop, the homes of the suspects and warehouses, and seized stolen car parts, including many engines and vehicle computers.The operation was carried out in collaboration with the intelligence unit of Lahav 433, Border Police and forces from police stations around the southern district.Female entrepreneurs gather for empowerment retreat Some 75 leading female start-up entrepreneurs gathered in the Arava this week to participate in a three-day retreat that aims to connect and empower talented and ambitious young women from the start-up industry. The project, called Elevation W, is led by Schusterman Connection Points, Nielsen Innovate, Start-Up Nation Central and Basis Technology.Among the entrepreneurs attending Elevation W are Anat Segal, CEO of Xenia; Sonya Davidson, CEO of HD Energy Now; Nurit Shevi, founder and CEO of MXIMO Mobile; Noa Segev, co-founder and CEO of 1item; and Ronnie Ceder, community leader at WeWork Israel. Participants come from Israel, Vietnam, the US, China, Kenya, Denmark, Sweden, South Africa and the Netherlands.Beersheba hosts wine festival The ninth annual Beersheba wine festival, Salute 2015, was held this week at the Ofer Grand Kanyon complex. In addition to wine stalls, bar tables and coffee tables, there were performances by bands and solo artists. Participating artists included the Black Hebrews of Dimona; and Llana Esperanza Mirable Roderiguez, who sang Latino hits accompanied by eight musicians.The event was a milestone in the city’s cultural front, setting a new standard for the most prestigious cultural event in Beersheba and making the field of wine and alcohol more accessible to residents. According to event organizers, the festival proves year after that year that there is a large target audience in the South that loves and understands wine just as there is in Central Israel. The festival presented 30 large well-known local, as well as high-quality boutique wineries.Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashdod and Jerusalem also host annual wine festivals.
