City Notes: Hadera gets techie – with WhatsApp and Instagram accounts

NORTH The Hadera Municipality just became more accessible to its younger generation of residents, with its brand new Instagram and Whatsapp accounts. The city will use these online platforms to circulate information, updates, announcements and various reports, as well as for bilateral communication with its residents. The municipality is also working on a new website to replace the existing one, to make it more accessible for people with disabilities. New app assists people in finding loved ones' graves in Haifa A new navigation app allows people to locate their relatives' graves in Haifa's Tal Regev Cemetery. The app contains names of the deceased and photographs of tombstones and was developed in response to the problem of overcrowded cemeteries, with visitors walking up and down rows of tombstones, desperately trying to find the graves of their loved ones. There are 40,000 graves in the Tal Regev Cemetery and it is being further expanded to meet the burial needs of the metropolis for the next 70 years. CENTER Nefesh B'Nefesh hosts 8th annual Thanksgiving dinner for 'olim' Last week, over 200 olim packed into a hall in Tel Aviv to celebrate Thanksgiving at Nefesh B'Nefesh's eighth annual dinner in honor of the occasion. The event was called My Big Fat TLV Thanksgiving and hosted a busload of olim from Jerusalem and over a dozen lone soldiers. It featured a three-piece fiddle band, as well as a cutout that allowed participants to pose with a turkey waving an Israeli flag – after which they were given a magnetic photograph of themselves “in costume.” The dinner began with an hour of mingling and drinks, followed by a traditional thanksgiving meal of turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and beer from Israel's boutique Negev Brewery. The event aims to help create a community for olim, on a holiday traditionally spent with family. TAU's 'Batman' launches Adopt-a-Bat campaign The American Friends of Tel Aviv University launched an Adopt-a-Bat campaign this week on Giving Tuesday. The initiative calls on children and adults to “adopt” a bat belonging to biologist and physicist Dr. Yossi Yovel, also referred to as Israel's “Batman.” Yovel has established one of the world's foremost labs for the study of bats in the heart of the Tel Aviv University Research Zoo. Adopters will be supporting Yovel's research by adopting one of the 60 bats living in his “batcave” and will receive an official certificate of adoption and bat tattoos. The campaign runs through December 31. “I am trying to understand one thing: How animals make decisions in the real world – not in the lab, not in unnatural conditions, but outside, in nature,” said Yovel. “Over the past four years, my lab has developed miniature devices, the smallest in the world, with GPS, audio, video, acceleration, EEG, and other technologies to measure physical and environmental cues that truly allow us to sense the world from a bat's point of view.” SOUTH Food and drink for visitors at Barzilai Medical Center An initiative by the NGO Vesamahta was launched last week in Ashkelon's Barzilai Medical Center, with the daily distribution of sandwiches, cookies and hot drinks to relatives of patients in the emergency room, wards and outpatient clinics. The NGO said the initiative has been made possible by the generous contribution of owners of the Oren Meshi Bakery and other donors. The Barzilai Medical Center serves a population of half a million, in Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, Sderot, Netivot, Ofakim, Ashkelon, and moshavim and kibbutzim in the area. It receives approximately 110,000 patients annually. The Lehrer family, who run Vesamahta, operate it from their home, which is located near the hospital. Every weekend they host patients' relatives who keep Shabbat and are thus unable to go home. Over the course of Shabbat they also distribute food to patients, new mothers and their families in the hospital. Medal ceremony for religious Sderot soccer club A medal-awarding ceremony took place in Sderot last week for participants of a soccer team from the religious sports club. The club operates within the framework of the Organization for Volunteers for Judaism and Torah AMIT, an American Jewish religious-Zionist volunteer organization dedicated to nurturing Israeli children to become productive members of society. Club manager Tal Avitan said it was founded as a “halachic answer to children and young talent in the field of soccer, for those who lead traditional religious and ultra-Orthodox lifestyles. “This club gives the children an equal opportunity to realize their aspirations, to fulfill their sportive potential, and it strengthens their ability to cope in their social group,” he said. Over 100 children participate in the club.

City Notes: Hadera gets techie – with WhatsApp and Instagram accounts

News briefs from around the nation.

IDF attempted to assassinate Hamas military leader

Netanyahu's former friend sharply criticizes PM

City Notes: Hadera gets techie – with WhatsApp and Instagram accounts

News briefs from around the nation.

See more on