By COMPILEDTAMARA ZIEVEFather Gabriel Naddaf(photo credit: FACEBOOK)CENTERThe Florentine Circus is welcoming the new year with a grand Hol Hamoed Succot circus event, including the musical Around the World in 80 Days, along with juggling, acrobatics and fire performances. The circus says its focus is on entertaining the whole family and introducing children to different cultures and traditions, expressed through circus acts.Experiential workshops will take place, as well as comic stalls, workshops, circus food and clowns.The event will be held in the Hakfar Hayarok circus tent.Thousands to pedal in TA cycling festival - On Hol Hamoed some 25,000 people will cycle around Tel Aviv-Jaffa for the seventh year, in an Elite Turkish Coffee-sponsored event celebrating a healthy, active lifestyle. Along the city’s boulevards, the Ayalon highway and the seafront promenade, there will be five different tracks for families, beginners, experienced cyclists and rollerbladers, and a 60 km. track for professional cyclists.Cyclists are invited to reward themselves with a picnic after taking part, with the option of purchasing a luxurious picnic basket put together by chef Eyal Glick, which they can pick up at the end of their cycling and enjoy in Hayarkon Park.As in previous years, activities will be held in Rabin Square on the days leading up to the bike ride, where participant kits will be distributed. There will be an exhibition of colorful bicycle helmets designed by art students and celebrities, and the public is invited to bring their own helmets and alter them in design workshops held at the square. Elite also invites visitors to pedal in front of a giant screen as long as they can, and the company has pledged a sum of money based on the number of kilometers accrued.NORTH
Haifa’s Life Sciences Park to establish technological greenhouse - The Economy Ministry’s chief scientist announced last week that the group Health 02 was selected as the grantee to establish a technological greenhouse that will operate in the Haifa Life Sciences Park. A partnership of four major organizations – Medtronic, IBM, Pitango Venture Capital and Rambam Medical Center – Health 02 will benefit from an eight-year period in which the state will finance 85 percent of the approved budget – over NIS 2m.The Life Sciences Park is under construction in the southern outskirts of Haifa and is part of the city’s vision of being Israel’s biotechnology capital. By the end of the year, construction of the first building is expected to be completed, covering 17,000 sq.m. at a cost of NIS 100m.Nazareth church welcomes Canadian delegation - Greek Orthodox priest Father Gabriel Naddaf received a delegation of Canadian businessmen and heads of Jewish organizations in Nazareth last week. The group discussed Israel’s Christian Empowerment Council (CEC), of which Naddaf is the spiritual leader, and its mission “to integrate Christian Israelis more fully into society and to educate the world about the Aramaic identity of the indigenous Christian community,” also covering the challenges and persecution Christians are facing in the Middle East.Naddaf distributed an anti-BDS booklet that the CEC published earlier this year and went on to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog.SOUTHBGU race car team comes in top 10 in Italy - BGRacing, the student race car team of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, came in eighth out of 48 competitors at the Formula SAE competition in Italy this week – the first time an Israeli team has broken into the top 10 in that competition.BGRacing has been building Formula race cars as a final project for a group of engineering students since 2011. This year, the team built two vehicles – one internal combustion and one electric, the former winning the prized position.Ashkelon brings in Rosh Hashana with a new neighborhood - Ashkelon residents raised their glasses to a new year and a new neighborhood in Kibbutz Nitzanim, where a recently opened area will absorb additional kibbutz members. The Local website reported that the new neighborhood, Nitzanim – located in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council – was inaugurated in the presence of the council head, community leaders, project managers and members of the kibbutz.With the new neighborhood, the kibbutz is expected to expand in the coming years from 100 to 164 families.