The Central Bureau of Statistics has released the latest population figures for Israeli cities and towns. Israel’s population as of June 30, 2009 stood at nearly 7.43 million – nearly three-quarters of a percent more than it was at the end of 2008. Some 623,000 people (8.4%) live in rural villages and towns of fewer than 2,000 residents.
Israel's growth rate currently stands at an annual rate of approximately 1.5% - compared to 1.188% for the entire world in 2008. The ranking of Israel’s 20 largest cities did not change. Jerusalem is still the largest city, with a population of 769,400, followed by Tel Aviv (393,200), Haifa (265,300), Rishon LeTzion (226,500), and Ashdod (210,500).
Jerusalem also grew by the largest amount – 5,800 people, just over three-quarters of a percent. It was followed by Petach Tikvah, Israel’s sixth-largest city, which added more than 2,000 more people (just over 1%) in the first half of 2009. The hareidi-religious city of Modi'in Illit, also known as Kiryat Sefer, jumped next-highest, by 1,800 people - a full 4.3% - to 43,500 people.
Rounding out Israel's top ten cities are Be'er Sheva (up .032% in the first half of 2009), Netanya (.067), Holon (.064), and Bnei Brak (.091). Only three cities dropped in population during the first half of 2009: Eilat, Tiberias, and Nazareth Illit, each by between 200 and 300 residents.
Growth in Judea and Samaria, Israel’s fastest-growing regions, continued to surpass that of the rest of the country, but slightly less so. Beitar Illit grew during the first half of 2009 by 2.9%, to a population of 35,700 residents, and Beit El grew by 3.7% to a population of 5,600. Between 1995 and 2007, the population of Judea and Samaria grew by 107%, from 130,000 to 270,000 people - compared with 29% in the rest of the country. From 2005 until 2007, population growth in Judea and Samaria was three times higher than it was in the rest of Israel - 5% a year compared to 1.7%.
Truckloads of 3 million pink slips head to Congress...
Boxes, pallets, truckloads of pink slips going to Congress ... Campaign hits 3 million warnings to members they could lose jobs. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions – 3 million to date – of pink slips have been dispatched to members of Congress in a little more than two weeks of a special program allowing citizens to tell their representatives they are fed up with the high spending and social engineering in Washington.
IF YOU ARE ALSO UNHAPPY ABOUT THE DIRECTION AMERICA IS TAKING TRY SENDING CONGRESS A
Record 900 Births in One Month in Bnei Brak Hospital ... Maayanei Hayeshua hospital in Bnei Brak saw 900 births in September, including
90 sets of twins.
The day with the most births was
Yom Kippur
our Jewish day of G-dly judgment
They can't take it ...
they are in a frenzy,
all those Jews being born!!
[did they call obama yet?]
SO ... WHAT DO THEY DO?
Return of First Intifada: Dozens of Arabs Attack Cars, Ambulance - Dozens of Arabs attackers stone Jewish vehicles, including a Magen Adom ambulance Monday, reminiscent of the first Intifada 20 years ago.
Egyptian MP: Storm Israeli Embassies If Jews Visit Temple Mount
An Egyptian MP called on Arabs around the world to storm Israeli embassies if Jews visit the Temple Mount. ‘Mosques have Divine Immunity,” he said.
What's worse than the snow is the below freezing temperatures that are expected to accompany it!
Imagine, SIMCHAT TORAH in freezing snow!
They say Flurries and Flakes, Saturday night rain might turn into the white stuff by shul time Sunday morning. Do you remember back in 1989? The 6.3 inches for the month?
Trivia: Global Muslim population 1.57 BILLION = nearly ONE in FOUR people in the world practices Islam.
The New York City region was whipped by wind gusts as high as 60 miles per hour that caused at least three deaths, knocked out power to thousands and delayed flights and commuter trains.
The National Weather Service has a High Wind warning in effect for NYC and part of Long Island and New Jersey until 11 PM, meaning winds of at least 40 mph (64 kph) and gusts of 58 mph or more are possible and may cause property damage and down power lines. The College Press
At least 15 wind-related incidents were reported across the city, a wall collapse, a motorist killed in a Mountainside when a tree fell on the car, and falling trees, tree branches and much more.
Having a Sukkah on your open balcony is always a bit precarious and subject to the weather. This is the first year that the balmy high winds actually did havoc. The boards on top of the schach, to hold it down, came crashing down into the Succah, together with the schach.
Thank the A-mighty that my husband was not sitting and learning at that moment, because if so, he surely would have to bentsch gomel (a blessing of gratitude made when narrowly escaping a dangerous life-threatening experience). I heard the boards crash on the cement patio and quickly ran to assess the situation.
B"H my husband was not there .... We quickly anchored the canvas walls to allow the wind to circulate (and not treat the succah like a sail boat and take it out to sea).
Our Sukkah is not quite as dangling as this one:
Chabad had the right idea, here is their Sukkah in the middle of Manhattan:
Bryant Park in mid Manhattan
Trivia: 1979 - Wind Gusts Save NYC Leaper. A 29 year old woman, saved by gusting winds when she jumped from the Empire State Building was .... As reported here.
Children in the Warsaw Ghetto 1943 and Children in the Palestine Gaza 2009
Kinder im Warschauer Ghetto / Children in the Warsaw Ghetto
‘War Sore’ Ghetto Gaza Bombed And Burned By Nazisrael
Destruction of Warsaw Ghetto during the 1943 Uprising
When the Jews made the ‘benevolent’ gesture of conceding the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in 2005, I wrote at the time that I thought they only intended to set it up as another concentration camp in ‘Eretz Yisrael’ for the 1.5 million men, women, and children left behind to suffer and die in it, and today I’m only more convinced that the leading Jews had that in mind all along.
life in Gaza is a constant gauntlet of Israeli sniper fire, military rockets and army bulldozers. No one is safe. In light of the escalating tensions, we're bringing back one our most moving documentaries, a hard-hitting expose of life in the Occupied territories. We speak to the children caught in the crossfire and find out the true cost of Israel's targeted assassinations policy.
Jews herded into Warsaw ghetto - 450,000 inmates walled in Gaza style
Starving children in Warsaw ghetto
‘Ghetto Gaza’ is also no doubt a vindictive response to what Jews suffered in the ghettos in Europe under the Nazis, and a revival of the gulags under the Soviet or Round Table “Council” of the JewSSR; and the psychopathic institution of it has it’s roots in the Old Testament, which forms the mindset of the Jew and says Jehovah commanded the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites and possess their land.
Jews smuggle food into Warsaw ghetto
In fact Gaza, in Old Testament times, was one of the five royal cities of the Philistines, and the ‘house of commons’ in the place was pulled down around the ears of the lords of the Philistines by the Jewish hero Samson, which might have provided some of the inspiration for the Jews’ bombing of the Hamas headquarters in the Gaza Strip, and puts a new twist on the Jews’ Samson Option, which is their plot to take down the world with them by using their nuclear and toxin weapons in a totally irresponsible way if there’s ever another Holocaust again.
Ruins of Jewish Council building Warsaw ghetto - c.f., destruction of Hamas HQ in Gaza
Israel Ocupation
Photo by WAFA
Photo by WAFA
Photo by AFP
Photo by WAFA
life in Gaza is a constant gauntlet of Israeli sniper fire, military rockets and army bulldozers. No one is safe. In light of the escalating tensions, we're bringing back one our most moving documentaries, a hard-hitting expose of life in the Occupied territories. We speak to the children caught in the crossfire and find out the true cost of Israel's targeted assassinations policy.
NASA WILL TOMORROW LAUNCH A SPECTACULAR MISSION TO BOMB THE MOON. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet.
Image above:
Artist's rendering of the LCROSS spacecraft and Centaur separation
The missile, a Centaur rocket, will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft that will guide it towards its target - a crater close to the Moon's south pole. Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.
LCROSS Lunar Impact
7:31 a.m. EDT/4:31 a.m. PDT
Friday Oct. 9
An approximately 1.5 hour Live NASA TV Broadcast is planned for the LCROSS impacts starting at 6:15 a.m. EDT/3:15 a.m. PDT, Oct. 9, on NASA TV and www.nasa.gov/ntv.
The broadcast includes:
Live footage from spacecraft camera
Real-time telemetry based animation
Views of LCROSS Mission and Science Operations
Broadcast commentary with expert guests
Prepared video segments
Views of the public impact viewing event at NASA Ames
Possible live footage from the University of Hawaii, 88-inch telescope on Mauna Kea.
The live LCROSS Post-Impact News Conference will be 10 a.m. EDT/7 a.m. PDT on NASA TV and www.nasa.gov/ntv.
NASA will tomorrow launch a spectacular mission to bomb the Moon. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet. The missile, a Centaur rocket, will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft that will guide it towards its target - a crater close to the Moon's south pole. Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.
DISCOVER: NASA has chosen the final destination for the LCROSS lunar impacting probe: the crater Cabeus A, near the Moon’s south pole.
So why is NASA smacking a probe into the Moon at high speed, and why there?
The idea is that over millions and billions of years, a lot of comets have hit the Moon. The water from these comets hits the surface and sublimates away… but if any settles at the bottoms of deep craters near the Moon’s poles, these permanently shadowed regions can act as a refrigerator, keeping the water from disappearing. It can stay there, locked up as ice, for a long, long time. Some estimates indicate there could be billions of tons of ice near the Moon’s south pole.
Detecting that water is tough. Radar results have been inconclusive, with some people saying there’s lots of water, and others saying there’s none at all.
The choice of Cabeus A for the impact site is a good one. It’s near the south pole, it’s a likely spot for there to be ice under the surface, it’s on the near side of the Moon, so people back here on Earth can observe it, but close enough to the limb that any ejected water can be seen. See map here.
As we prepare for the Joy of Succos, here are some places to visit to view and read about the symbols and background of Succot
The Temple Institute
The Source of our Joy at Sukkot - It was none other than King David who taught us that this is the epitome of true happiness ... Waving of the Species - The Mishna (Sukkah 3, 12) describes that in the time when the Holy Temple stood, the lulav was taken allweek long only by those who worshipped in the Temple itself. However, outside the Temple-even for those in the holy city ofJerusalem proper - the lulav was only held on the first day ... The Ten Elders - In addition to King David, there is a tradition (BT Bava Batra 14:B) that ten elders wrote and contributedportions of the book of Psalms … Placing the willow around the Altar ... Trumpet and Shofar Blalsts ... Surrounding the Altar ... The Water Libation ... Silver Altar Cup and Golden Flask ... Drawing Down the Spirit of Prophecy ... Balconies in the Women’s Court ... Prophecies of the End of Days ... The Final Judgment and Sukkot ...
