NORTH For the first time ever, a students’ beach opened at Lake Kinneret this week near the Kinneret Academic College. Students can use the beach free of charge and take advantage of the boats and equipment.The college officially opened the beach last Wednesday, a day before the official swimming season began at the lake. Hundreds of students participated in the event, which took place at the surf club compound at Ma’agan Beach, next to the college.Two hurt in Haifa nightclub brawl Two men were stabbed during a fight at a nightclub in Haifa that led to the arrest of five clubgoers, the Local website reported. The brawl broke out in the early hours of Saturday morning at a club on Herzl Street, when two men were stabbed in the upper body. They were evacuated to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center in serious to moderate condition.The suspects fled the scene, but after combing the area, Haifa Police arrested five people. The suspects were set to be brought for a remand extension hearing at the Haifa District Court.The club was temporarily closed, and police planned to request that the closure be permanent.“In the last six months, due to violence at clubs in the city, the police, together with the municipality and court, have permanently closed four nightclubs,” the Local website quoted a Haifa police spokesman as saying.Tractor driver killed in Galilee crash A man driving a tractor was killed last week in a collision with a car near Kfar Szold.The tractor overturned as a result of the collision, and the driver became trapped. Magen David Adom paramedics arrived at the scene and pronounced the man dead.Upper Nazareth: 16-year-old stabs brother A 16-year-old stabbed his 14-year-old brother after the two had an argument early Sunday morning in Upper Nazareth, police reported.The younger boy was taken to the hospital with a light wound to his hand.Safed country club owner battles haredim over Shabbat opening A feud between a Safed country club owner and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) residents who are demanding the club be closed on Shabbat heated up last week, as neither side was prepared to surrender, news website Mynet reported.Haredi voices on the issue were getting louder, and members of the community were distributing leaflets and organizing a mass rally as rabbis met to discuss the matter, while others canceled their membership.Country club owner Tzion Hilal told Mynet that he was not considering giving in to the demands, and stressed that he had already done a lot to accommodate the haredim.“This is war,” Hilal told Mynet last week, after several weeks of running between rabbis and pleading for calm while simultaneously reiterating his red line – that the country club would not be closed on Shabbat.“I took television out of training rooms, I stopped playing music, I even fired staff that were not considered ‘modest,’” Mynet quoted him as saying. “They demanded that there be no men whatsoever present while women swam, so I took all the men away, including myself.”However, he said that despite these steps, they still plastered walls with posters calling on the community to strengthen the observance of Shabbat, without sending representatives to him to try to reach some sort of compromise.In response to the haredi campaign, a Facebook group called “Secular Safed-ites” was launched. Hilal, however, criticized secular Safed residents as being apathetic.“I don’t see them mobilizing,” he said.CENTER Caregiver and mother suspected of exploiting elderly Police suspect that a 28-year-old caregiver and her 54-year-old mother in Tel Aviv exploited and abused elderly people in their care over the past few years, the Local website reported last week.According to the Central Police Unit, the mother and daughter allegedly located lonely senior citizens who did not have any close relatives, and identified themselves as caregivers interested in working for them. After gaining their trust and dependency, the duo allegedly exploited their employers, stealing their money and possessions while humiliating, beating and abusing them in other ways.In some cases, the elderly on whom they preyed were Holocaust survivors living on national insurance benefits, which the suspects are believed to have taken from them – leaving them destitute and sometimes even forced to beg for a living.Police arrested both mother and daughter.Man hit by vehicle in TA, sustains critical injuries A vehicle hit and injured a 20-year-old man near the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station Saturday.MDA personnel were dispatched to the scene to provide medical treatment and evacuated the man to the city’s Ichilov Hospital.MDA said he had suffered multiple-system injuries and was in critical condition.Youths arrested in connection to Jaffa hit-and-run Police arrested several youths last weekend who were suspected of being in a vehicle that hit two pedestrians in Jaffa.The police apprehended the youths in a parking lot on Jaffa’s Beit Pelet Street while the latter were allegedly trying to cover up signs of the accident.Police had been searching for the car that struck and seriously injured the pedestrians before fleeing the scene. The collision left a man in serious condition and a woman in moderate-toserious condition, both with head wounds. The two were evacuated to hospitals for medical treatment.Religious freedom NGO launches virtual torch ceremony The Hiddush organization for religious freedom and equality launched its alternative Independence Day online torch-lighting ceremony on Sunday. Unlike in previous years, when “protest torches” were lit, this year the NGO is focusing its ceremony on religious freedom and equality in the burden of national service.Web surfers can light virtual torches representing a range of social and religious issues, each characterized by a pledge the NGO would like to hear from an MK or population representing that issue. For instance, Finance Minister Yair Lapid represents the social revolution torch, former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head and current Yesh Atid MK Yaakov Peri stands for equality in the burden of service, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union backs the civil marriage torch, and Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky speaks for the freedom of all Jews to pray at the Western Wall.Hiddush CEO Rabbi Uri Regev said that the organization was happy to hold its first upbeat ceremony.“In the elections, the public expressed a clear desire for a government that will implement a societal revolution. There is no better gift that the Israeli government could give the country as it marks its 65th birthday than to finally fulfill the promises of religious freedom made in the Declaration of Independence,” he said.Regev noted that an additional goal of the torch ceremony was to remind the Yesh Atid Party of its promises. Equality in the burden must happen now, not in another four years, he asserted, also pointing to freedom of marriage as another pressing issue.“The people of Yesh Atid must remember that they promised ‘new politics’ and that ‘we came to bring change,’” he added.SOUTH Teens injured in accident near Rahat A road accident near the entrance to Rahat left two 16-yearolds injured last weekend.The two youths were evacuated to Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba for treatment.Prison inmates suffer smoke inhalation in fire Eleven inmates suffered from smoke inhalation after a fire broke out at the Ohalei Kedar Prison in Beersheba last weekend.MDA units were dispatched to the scene to treat the injured and evacuated a moderately injured man to Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba. Three firefighter units were called to extinguish the fire.The circumstances of the incident were under investigation.Attempted robbery at Beersheba Bank Hapoalim A man allegedly tried to rob a branch of Bank Hapoalim in Beersheba on Sunday, police reported.The man reportedly threatened security guards who arrived at the scene and detained him.Eilat protests proposals to eliminate VAT exemption Members of the Eilat City Council and residents were scheduled to hold a protest this week in light of proposals to cancel the city’s value added tax exemption.The council claims that the imposition of VAT would weaken the economically prosperous city and would cause a decrease in revenue produced in the city for transfer to the Treasury.
