the interesting part of this conference (interesting for the purpose of this post) is the panel discussion at the 5:14:00 mark. The panel is made up of Yishai Lapidot, Rabbanit Adina Bar Shalom, MK Merav Michaeli, and Mayor of Ramat Gan Carmel Shama Cohen. The panel discusses the issue of "hadarat nashuim" and the standing of women in society and the issue of separation between men and women.

If Gantz and Netanyahu would form a government together, I would give them my 8 mandates and vote in favor of the government even if they won't bring me in to the coalition.  Netanyahu and Gantz should take a Tanakh and performt he Goral HaGra between them [to decide who should be Prime Minister first]

  -- MK Avigdor Lieberman

According to a report on Globes, among the larger cities of Israel, that being any city with 100000 residents and above, Bet Shemesh is the fastest growing city in Israel for the past decade.

10 years ago, in 2008, Bet Shemesh had a population of 72,780 while the end of 2018 found the population count of Bet Shemesh to sit at 118,676 - growth of 62.3%.

The big cities are mostly in the region between Tel Aviv and Haifa and population statistics show the cities growing, with more cities near the 100k mark expected to break through it in the near future, indicating the preference people have for cities over small towns, and indicating the increasing gap between the cities in the center of the country and the towns in the periphery.

Heads up everybody.... Amazon is now offering free shipping to Israel!!!

Amazon is now offering free shipping to Israel on many qualifying items, not everything, on orders above $49.

that means you can qualify for the free shipping an still keep your order under the $75 limit for no import tax or VAT. Just note that if you go crazy and order a ton of stuff to take advantage and surpass the $75 mark, you will still have to pay the VAT and any relevant import taxes.

Qualifying items will have a note in the description that it qualifies for free shipping to Israel, and when you checkout and pay you will have to select the free shipping option.

I do not know, and have not seen it mentioned anywhere, if this is just a temporary promotion for a few days or weeks, or if it is a "permanent" arrangement... Hopefully they will find it worthwhile enough to continue long-term.

The purpose of this promotion seems to be to compete with the big annual 11.11 promotion by Ali Express, and then also with the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. It is entirely possible that after this shopping season passes, the Amazon promotion might also go away, but nothing official has been announced.

Ben Shapiro recently vacationed in Israel for the holidays, and he continued broadcasting his podcast while here. In this episode he starts off talking about Israel, and even if you have no interest in his show, the first ten minutes or so are about Israel...

as an alumnus of Telshe Yeshiva, I have a soft spot for anything Telshe.. I just found this video after listening to an episode about Telshe on the Jewish History Soundbites podcast... the video is really a fundraiser for Yeshivat Ateret Shlomo, but much of it is about Telshe...

Netanyahu would not have dared to come to me with a request to be flexible about religious issues

  -- Deputy Health minister Yaakov Litzman, after reports publicized that Netanyahu asked Deri to be flexible on the religion-state issues that would allow Lieberman to find his way back to a Netanyahu coalition..