Within the framework of its 130th anniversary celebrations, Herzog Medical Center (formerly Herzog Hospital) will next week inaugurate a medical imaging center in collaboration with the MAOR Center and the International Fellowship for Christians and Jews.
Dedicated to children and adults with special needs, the medical imaging center will enable noninvasive diagnostic medical imaging through which physicians can glean deep analysis without performing surgery.
Construction has already begun; the first MRI, CT scan, and ultrasound devices have been ordered and are expected to be in use by the end of this year,
The director-general, Dr. Jacob Haviv, is in charge of an ultra-modern medical facility – a far cry from what was initially called Ezrat Nashim, which later changed its name to Herzog Hospital in honor of Rabbanit Sarah Herzog, who for decades diligently worked on its behalf and headed its executive board.
Jerusalem's parking problem
■ CURIOUSLY MISSING from the list of speakers at the opening on June 16 of the Israel Conference on Parking, Traffic and Transportation is the name of Transportation Minister Miri Regev. Other members of the ministry will be present at Jerusalem’s VERT Hotel, as will Mayor Moshe Lion, but barring a last-minute change, Regev will be absent.
Among the subjects to be discussed are creative solutions for parking – a problem confronting municipalities throughout the country.
Let’s be honest: It’s going to get worse before it gets better – if at all. High-rises are being constructed on small, narrow streets. If there is only one car per residential unit, it’s still going to cause intolerable traffic congestion. While light rail infrastructure is being put in place in numerous neighborhoods in various towns and cities across Israel, there is total chaos and congestion on the roads, as traffic is forced to divert from infrastructure construction sites. In a word – bedlam.
Additional light rail services will be a boon for people who do not own cars, motorbikes, scooters, or bicycles. But people who do own such vehicles, plus those who own cars, are unlikely to switch to public transportation, though they may use it for destinations only two or three stops from their homes or places of work. It’s going to take some super creative thinking outside the box to find a lasting and affordable solution to parking.
Gal Gadot at the Jerusalem Film Festival
■ GUEST OF honor at the opening night of the International Jerusalem Film Festival, at the Sultan’s Pool on July 17, will be Israel’s own Hollywood actress Gal Gadot, who will receive an award in recognition of her work as a supermodel, actress, and film director. For two decades, she has been a success story in Israel and around the world, and is the first Israeli to receive a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Gadot has also been an unofficial ambassador for Israel, sometimes speaking out at the risk of losing popularity.
Gadot’s phenomenal success as a fashion model served to open doors for her in Hollywood, where she proved to have talent as well as good looks.
Also due to receive an award on the opening night of the festival is film producer Lawrence Bender, whose movies over the years have received 37 Academy Awards nominations. Of these, he has received nine Oscars.
Up until just over a decade ago, Bender produced several of the films directed by Quentin Tarantino. Having married Israeli singer Daniella Pick, Tarantino divides his time between Israel and the US, and responds to the title of Abba (“Daddy”) bestowed on him by his Israeli son and daughter.
Bender is also a writer; and before entering the film industry, he worked for several years as a dancer.
Arson in Jerusalem
■ AN ARSON attack hit the Or Habib synagogue in Jerusalem’s Sanhedria neighborhood, one of the residential enclaves of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community.
The synagogue is the seat of former Sephardi chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who has been a strident opponent to the drafting of haredi young men into the IDF, and who has spoken out in the most insensitive and insulting manner against Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He has also instructed haredi youth who receive draft notices to flush them down the toilet.
The fire damaged holy books and Torah scrolls. Many people, probably the majority, prefer to believe that the perpetrator was a non-Jew. It is difficult to grasp that any Jew – no matter how secular – would want to burn down a synagogue and destroy Torah scrolls. Such an act is considered to be among the most severe cases of antisemitism.
In another fire that took place on the previous day, a woman almost lost her life.
At the time of writing, police were still investigating the cause of a fire that completely ruined an apartment in a building on Herzl Boulevard in Kiryat Moshe. Firemen were able to rescue the occupant of the apartment – a woman in her late 60s who suffered critical burns on her upper torso. Magen David Adom paramedics rushed her to Hadassah Medical Center. Residents on the upper floors of the building were evacuated by firefighters early on Saturday morning as flames shot upward from the burning balcony of the damaged apartment.
Faulty electric wiring is often the cause of fires in apartments. So is smoking in bed. There have been several cases of smokers falling asleep before finishing the cigarette or butting it out. The cigarette then falls from the smoker’s hand, sets fire to the bedding, and the fire then spreads through the whole apartment, and sometimes further.
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