Journalist Amit Segal reported earlier today that the Ministry of Finance is considering making up for the cancellation of the tax on sugary drinks by starting to charge VAT to tourists.

I know the issue is far more complicated than my initial take, but my initial take is still what it is.

A group of a dozen Syrian Jews living in Brooklyn traveled to Syria to meet with the small Jewish community there. According to TOI, the visit had the support of the Syrian government, though an expected meeting with government officials did not take place.

Globes has an astounding statistic. 

The Western Wall Heritage Foundation is releasing a new attraction in the Kotel area. in time for Yom Yerushalayim. 

Big news, hot off the press.By the way, this means that families that wish to travel abroad with children who were not vaccinated (because they cannot be vaccinated at this point) nor got sick with, and recovered from, CoronaVirus, will not be able to travel, as they would not be allowed back in because of the children. Unless they want to come back to Israel and eave their children behind, of course.

The news is reporting that a delegation from the United Arab Emirates is due to arrive in Israel today. This will be the first delegation from the UAE coming to Israel, after a few from Israel have traveled to the UAE. 

Millionaires, or Billionaires (depending which article you believe), are allowed to break Israel's official rules, but only some of them. Some rules are reserved only for the politicians to break.

According to TOI and Ynet, despite their being an official ban on non-Israelis entering the country, an exception was granted to the son of a m/billionaire who wanted to come visit Israel - specifically to visit his girlfriend (model and actress Yael Shelbia) and his brother who are each currently serving in the IDF.

The young man is Brandon Korff, the son of Shari Redstone. He was granted an exception to come to Israel to visit his brother and was told he would first have to go into quarantine immediately for two weeks and only then be able to visit his brother. Korff already knew the rules don't really apply to him, so he broke the quarantine rule immediately and went to visit his girlfriend and stay with her. By the way - No word on whether he also visited his brother.

Korff found out the hard way that millionaires and billionaires can only break some rules but not all. Visiting people against quarantine rules are reserved for people like Benjamin Netanyahu and Reuven Rivlin (and a few other politicians) who broke the isolation/lockdown rules set for the entire country and had Pesach seder with their relatives.

Korff is supposedly being deported now. So he got to visit his girlfriend, didnt even have to quarantine, and now gets to go home... Wait until his brother finds out that he came all the way to Israel and didnt even visit him!

It looks like the Corona Virus will have one definite fatality, and that is the Israeli tourism industry.

The fear of the spread of Corona is still increasing, as Europe is being affected now, and people  entering Israel are being found to have been exposed to Corona and even infected with it.

The Ministries of Health and Interior are already shutting Israel's borders to tourists from some countries (Italy was just added to the presently short list, and I think we can expect it to increase pretty quickly). They have also put out calls to Israelis to rethink any trips they have planned abroad int he near future and reconsider due to the threat of Corona exposure.

For a country that relies so heavily on tourism, if this doesn't get under control soon, it can be a fatal blow to the Israeli economy. Hopefully the coming end of winter will also bring about a decreasing number of cases, and people will be able to get back to their regularly scheduled lives...

I was not aware of this, though I guess the tour guides among us are, but the State of Israel has never authorized Yiddish to be used by tour guides when guiding tours in Israel. Not a single tour guide in Israel has been certified to guide in Yiddish.

I did not even know that it was necessary to be certified in Yiddish - I assumed tour guides are certified to guide, and they can talk to their "guidees", or clients, in whatever language they want. It turns out the State has to approve the language a guide can guide in, and Yiddish has not yet been included in the list of approved languages.

Why not? The problem, according to INN, is that they have had trouble finding testers who can test potential tour guides in Yiddish for certification.

That has now changed and one of the official testers has learned Yiddish and can now conduct certification tests in Yiddish for those guides who wish to guide in Yiddish.

A tour guide from Beitar, Yechiel Cherez, just upgraded his services and after passing the new test became the first tour guide certified to guide in Yiddish.

With the sharp increase in Haredi tourism, and the State's desire to encourage it to grow even more, this guide from Beitar, and others who follow in his footsteps, is going to rake in the Yiddish guiding business. Cherez said to the Tourism Minister that using Yiddish he will be able to bring the stories of Israel and the various sites to sectors that it was not open to until now, and thereby he will be able to increase their love for Eretz Yisrael..

our government does not leave anything to chance..


if you thought the special treatment given to the 3 millionth tourist was a nice story, TheMarker reveals how it came about. I don't know if that will put a damper on your being impressed or make you more impressed.

Letting the 3 millionth tourist walk through Ben Gurion with an amazing tourism treat is just too risky. Who knows who that lucky person might be? Who knows if they will speak or understand English? Maybe they'll be people of questionable character. Anything could happen. Maybe they wouldn't agree to change their plans, to be photographed and used in a publicity stunt, or whatnot.

Tourist #3,000,000 did not walk through the gates of Ben Gurion by chance at that time. She was selected and directed.

According to TheMarker, the Ministry of Tourism spent a lot of time figuring out around when the 3 millionth tourist would come and they narrowed it down to the day and arrival on a plane landing between 8am and 10:30am. They identified that the tourist would be on a flight from either Miami, New York, Romania, or Russia.

So, they sent agents on all those flights to look for someone who meets the requirements - willing to change plans for a special 48 hour tour, someone photogenic, someone who speaks English well, and someone willing to sign a piece of paper allowing the government to make use of their images in marketing campaigns.

With the flights from New York and Miami arriving too early in the count, they narrowed it down to the passenger being on the Wizair flight from Romania. Ami Ayalon was on the flight as an agent of the Ministry of Tourism and he went looking for tourist #3,000,000. On the entire flight there were only two people that qualified as per he MoT's requirements. One was the eventual winner and the other was an employee of WizAir. The employee of WizAir passed it on so nothing would be suspicious, and the lucky tourist was escorted through Ben Gurion to claim her special vacation...

It sounds like an elite commando unit was needed to put this all together...

very cool

Israel surprised and pampered a special tourist this week - tourist #3,000,000.

3 million tourists!

The pampering included upgrading the hotel suite, a limo tour, a helicopter tour, a culinary tour, a special Dead Sea tour, and PM Benjamin Netanyahu himself leading a tour of the Tower of David Museum, along with more treats and activities.

That is an awful lot of tourists to come to our little country.

I wonder how they counted. Is it based on computer tracking of tourist visas that entered the country since 1948, or some other date? This would include thousands of yeshiva students (and maybe others) who come on tourist visas (rather than on student visas), as many do.

However they do it, that is an impressive number of tourists and it was nice of them to commemorate the event so nicely.

The government has approved a new duty free status in Eilat, temporarily.

The airport in Eilat, Uvda, is meant to be replaced next year by a new international airport being built in Timna.

For the meantime, until the new airport is completed, the government has approved Yisrael Katz's plan to declare the Eilat airport as one that is free from any duties on flights. This is meant to encourage tourism to Israel and specifically to Eilat. The airport services internal Israeli flights, as well as flights from Europe and other areas.

This exemption from duties will eventually apply to the new airport in Timna when it opens.

As well, Israelis will be able to benefit from the area and purchase items in the duty free region in the ports there, similar to the way Israelis can buy duty free products in Ben Gurion Airport. This is meant to encourage Israelis to vacation in Eilat rather than travel abroad.
source: Ynet

It is a great idea, and if it encourages more tourism and brings more money into Israel, that would be great.

Regarding duty free for Israelis, I am sure it wont cause more Israelis to vacation in Eilat over travel abroad. Israeli's who travel abroad for cheaper vacations in Eastern Europe won't spend more money to vacation in Eilat just because they can save a small amount of money on whiskey and cigarettes. I do expect Israelis to figure out a method of benefiting from the duty free status in the Eilat ports without actually bothering to spend too much time in Eilat. I should note, this does not apply to all Israelis. Plenty of Israelis do vacation in Eilat, and hopefully those numbers will also increase. I just do not think the duty free will be what causes Israelis who dont prefer Eilat to suddenly prefer it for their vacation spot.

Not to create a panic, but over the years I have been asked this question many times and never had an answer until now. So, I decided to post it, thinking maybe it will help some people, maybe it will make it easier for some people to decide to visit Israel and enjoy calmly their visit.

In light of the recent rush for gas masks, many people here cannot get them and feel frightened that they are being left unprotected. Whether it is tourists here for a short visit or people who live here without Israeli citizenship. When Israel gives out gas masks to the public, they only give out to citizens. Tourists are the last to receive them, and then only at the last moment, when war actually breaks out, and then they can't necessarily be counted on to get the information out well (based on what i remember from the Gulf War).

tourists dont wait in line, but they do have to pay

So, tourists or non-citizen residents, looking to buy gas masks privately, here is some helpful information for you. Thanks to the people who went to get their gas masks from these places and were able to then give me the information..

Shalon Chemical Industries, 2 Kaplan st. 10th floor, Tel Aviv. 03-695-7191. look for Riki (spoke English).

The have a factory in Kiryat Gat, which is is a bit more complicated to find, but they also had masks for people with beards.
Address: 35/2 Israel Pollak road, Kiryat Gat. name of factory is Shalon (it is near the Sugat sugar factory - there are a number of locations on that road). 08-687-9111. speak to Adi. if going to Shalon in Kiryat Gat, you have to call in advance to make sure they have it, and you have to tell them to put it on the side for you, and tell them you are coming. (they dont normally sell from there to to the public).

if you need the one for people with a beard, you have to be either old or say you have asthma. they  seemingly dont just give them out for people with beards.

The gas mask costs 400 NIS, the one for beards cost 800 NIS.

There is also a place in Netanya called Fire Center, located at 1 HaMelacha st. in the new Industrial Zone of Netanya, phone number 09-8355212.

I am told they are more expensive at Fire Center, but Fire Center will mail the masks to you, which Shalon will not do.