Seeing the enormous potential for Israeli clean technologies in solar energy and water for the developing world, Sivan Yaari-Borowich started an NGO to help Africa. She puts two and two together by taking Israeli technologies and matching them with Jewish donors in the United States to fund real world green energy projects in Africa.
Israeli Sunshine Girl Gets United Nations Prize for Jewish Heart (video)
Breasts Age Faster Than Faces! 5 Tit Tips To Help Stem Sag
In the race towards old age, our “girls” cross the finish line first! Maybe not a prize you want to win, but breast tissue ages faster than the rest of our body according to a study published in the journal Genome Biology.
Saudis Show “Love” Using Car Art Bumper Stickers, With a Twist
Hand-holding, smooches and inter-gender chitchat between strangers are prohibited in Saudi Arabia, as are all public demonstrations of amor. So passionate Saudis stymied by morality laws are turning to their cars to show some love.
4,000 Handmade Hats Collected for Syrian Refugees by this Green Prophet
What started as a few throwaway balls of yarn to a tiny knitter in Jordan’s Zaatari Syrian refugee camp inspired a goofball idea: I asked crafty folks everywhere to toss a few hats in the ring. The reaction has been jaw-dropping. So far we have collected some 4,000 handmade hats for Syrian refugees.
Dubai Prince Snuggles Rare White Tiger Cub in Home Movie (VIDEO)
Is this the right kind of message you should be sending to your kingdom? That large wild felines should be kept in captivity as pets? We ask ourselves these questions all the time, now an almost unbelievable Instagram video of a Dubai prince surfaces.
Israel’s wild pigs travelled from Europe
Wild boars look more or less the same in Israel as they do anywhere else: stalky and hairy with big heads, long snouts, and beady eyes.
Some even hunt wild boars as a delicacy, despite the religious prohibitions in Judaism and Islam from eating pork. Scientists had really no reason to suspect Israeli wild boars were any different at all than their brothers and sisters roaming the Middle East, all the way from Egypt to Iran.
But they were wrong.
Now, in a new study researchers at Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute have found that, unlike the Near Eastern wild boars in surrounding countries, Israel’s wild boars originated in Europe.
After a genetic and archaeological analysis, researchers led by Prof. Israel Finkelstein and his team suggest the wild boars living in Israel are descendants of domesticated pigs brought to Israel starting almost 3,000 years ago by the non-kosher Philistines and other seafaring raiders sometimes referred to as the Sea Peoples.
The findings were published this week in Scientific Reports.
Pillagers were pig lovers
“Our DNA analysis proves that the wild boars living in Israel today are the descendants of European pigs brought here starting in the Iron Age, around 900 BCE,” says Finkelstein. “Given the concentration of pig bones found at Philistine archaeological sites, the European pigs likely came over in the Philistines’ boats.”
Pig bones have been found in abundance at Philistine archaeological sites along Israel’s southern coastal plane dating from the beginning of the Iron Age, around 1150 to 950 BCE. But pig bones are rare or absent at Iron Age sites in other parts of the country, including in the central hills, where Ancient Israel is thought to have emerged.
The researchers set out to determine whether the Philistines and other Sea Peoples — groups of seafaring invaders from around the Aegean Sea — made use of local pig breeds or brought new ones with them from their native lands. Because there is not much difference in the size and the shape between European and Near Eastern pigs, the researchers had to use DNA testing to identify the origins of the animals.
Wild boars and their babies, present day in Israel, at the Hula Valley:
Genetics researchers divide the pigs of the world into three main groups: European, Far Eastern, and Near Eastern. To the researchers’ surprise, each of the 25 modern-day wild boars they analyzed from Israel share a European genetic signature, whereas modern-day boars from nearby countries, like Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Iraq, and Iran, have a Near Eastern genetic signature. The researchers conclude that European pigs arrived in Israel at some point and overtook the local pig population.
To find out when, the researchers collected and analyzed pig bones from archaeological sites across Israel — ranging from the Neolithic period to medieval times, 9500 BCE to 1200 CE — the most comprehensive study of ancient DNA carried out in Israel in terms of both number of samples and time span. The results showed that pigs from the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age display the local Near Eastern genetic signature, while a European genetic signature appears early in the Iron Age, around 900 BCE, and has been dominant ever since.
Domestic European pig breeds may have been introduced by groups of “Sea Peoples” — including the Philistines, mentioned in the Bible — who migrated to the coast of the Levant starting in the 12th century BCE and settled in places like Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ashdod.
Additional European pigs could have been brought to the Levant during the Roman-Byzantine period and during the Crusades. Over time, the European pigs overtook the European pigs, and their descendants are the only wild boars living in Israel today.
The domestic European pigs could have driven the local pigs to extinction, or mated with them — which the researchers think is more likely. To find out for sure, they are further analyzing the DNA of modern wild boars.
Pigs and the consumption of them are a much contested issue in Israel where kosher laws demand that no pigs for consumption be raised in or on the holy land. For that reason the pork industry is raised (literally) on platforms so that the little pigs do not touch the ground. Pigs also get a bad rap in Muslim countries, particulary in ones that have a Christian population. Refer to our article on the pig cull after swine flu outbreaks overtook Cairo. Also, see how wild boars are taking over this city in Israel.
Paris Tower “Graffed” by Arab Street Artists, Then Destroyed (VIDEO)
The world’s biggest street art exhibition was demolished this week in Paris just one month after opening to the public. Destruction of the wildly popular Tour Paris 13 was staged as carefully as its creation. This wall-to-wall-to-ceiling-to-floor painting project was performance art every step of the way.
World’s First ‘Green’ Ice Cream Factory – in Turkey
Turkey is better known for these five unsustainable development projects and a new undersea rail tunnel near a major fault zone than green building. But Konya has just become home to one of the world’s first LEED-certified ice cream factories.
Pomegranate Seeds Removed in 10 Secs With Wooden Spoon (VIDEO)
Now that winter is here we celebrate the virtues of the pomegranate. Did you know it is a plant of the Koran and it is also celebrated by Judaism? But how does one eat the seeds of this delicious and healthy fruit without spending hours doing it by hand? This video below shows us.
Will Qatari Kids Make Eco Films with Eyes Wide Open?
Young filmmakers from 19 schools in Qatar will be competing in the first ever Junior Environmental Filmmaker Awards contest. Small teams of three and four kids from grades 7 to 9 will be making movies about water.
Happy Islamic New Hirji Year
Happy New Year to all our Muslim readers today. While not everyone agrees on the date, the Hijri New Year falls around now, and on November 3 and 4 this year for most Muslims.
AR Wear’s Anti Rape Underpants (VIDEO)
Rape and sexual assaults on women is just as much a problem in the Middle East as it is in the west, although the “flavor” of assault differs somewhat. Think of Lara Logan, the US journalist assaulted by numerous men while reporting from the streets of Cairo. But with AR Wear, new anti-cut, anti-rape undies, could sexual assaults and date rapes of the future be prevented?
Celebrating The Olive In The Galilee
Artisinal olive oil. It has an attractive ring, but think what “artisinal” means. You associate it with ancient traditions that living people continue to maintain – with the material products of those traditions.
But when you pick up a bottle of olive oil, you’re probably thinking of salad, not imagining the physical labor involved in making it. I learned about Israel’s olive crops and the mix of ancient and modern methods of producing olive oil, on a tour of the Galilee olive festival this week. Laurie Balbo reported on the olive tree’s historical origins in this fascinating post.
Every October and November, the the Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee, the Galilee Development Authority and the Olive Council sponsor the Olive Branch Festival celebrating the olive harvest. Enjoying the cool fall weather, visitors tour villages throughout the Galilee, the Golan and the valleys where olives and their oil are a culture unto themselves.
In the north of the country, it’s an opportunity to meet Druze villagers whose livelihood depends largely on olive oil production. We’ve reported on our Druze culinary experience in this post. And if you like olive oil, you can take advantage of the chance to buy it fresh – almost right off the tree.
This year’s olive festival was in full swing when Green Prophet visited Kibbutz Parod, where the Saba Habib olive oil manufacturer is housed. Saba Habib produces olives, oil, and soaps and other cosmetic products based on olive oil. We met Saba Habib, grandson of the farm’s original founder, and head of the business today. Our tour guide translated as Saba Habib explained in Arabic about the farm and its products.
Saba Habib showed us how to judge the quality of olive oil: if a drop held between thumb and forefinger holds its shape and doesn’t dribble away, the oil is pure olive and fresh.
I was taken not only by the fresh oil and olives, but by the hand-made soaps, some of which are based on camel milk. Just looking at those soaps, you know that only pure, skin-friendly ingredients are in it, unlike commercial personal hygiene products that are suspected of being carcinogenic.
The Israel Olive Board (website in Hebrew) has its offices nearby on the Hananyah Farm. Prof. Adi Naali, CEO, took us for a stroll in the orchards and gave a short talk about Israel’s olives and how the country has modernized production.
“Until two years ago, Israel couldn’t even keep up with the local demand,” says Naali. “The Galilee has 250 dunams of olive groves that survive on rainfall alone, mostly in Druze villages. The annual average of those trees is 50 kg of olive oil per dunam. The Ministry of Agriculture is encouraging farmers to grow more olive trees, introducing modern agricultural methods like drip irrigation.”
“Farmers were reluctant to irrigate at first,” he notes. “It went against tradition. But it soon became clear that irrigated trees produce four or five times as much oil as non-irrigated trees: an average of 200 kg. oil per dunam.
“We can’t compare our output with Europe’s massive olive oil production. On the other hand, Israel is too small to produce bad olive oil. Large olive farms can’t handle their huge quantities of ripe olives at once; some of their olives may ferment and lose quality while waiting for processing. We have enough labor and mills to process the harvest immediately. There’s a proverb in Arabic: olives should go ‘from the tree to the stone’ – the grinding stones of the mill. Israeli olive oil has earned prizes in international competitions. ”
“Olive trees are tough and resistant to diseases,” adds Naali. “If attacked by the olive fly, we use an organic spray to get rid of it. Olive trees are sustainable agriculture par excellence. They don’t need much water, fertilizer or pesticide. No part of the harvest goes to waste. We compost the pomace, or the mass left over from crushing the fruit. Even the vegetable water that separates from the oil during processing is spread out over the soil in the orchards as fertilizer.”
The Olive Board has recently issued certification of olive oil purity, to assure consumers that the product with the oil-drop logo on the packaging is the real, unadulterated thing. The wonderfully cheap olive oils that consumers were eagerly picking up in supermarkets a while ago turned out to be a fraud.
And olive trees can live for hundreds, even thousands of years. We enjoyed a jeep drive to serene olive groves where ancient trees said to be 2000 years old are still bearing good fruit.
The next sight to meet our eyes was the Druze grandmother winnowing the leaves out of just-picked olives (top photo). It looked like mild exercise that an elderly woman used to a lifetime of outdoor work might like. I reflected on how much human labor goes into artisanal olive oil.
We strolled on and watched the harvest itself. Traditionally, harvest was accomplished by beating the branches, which breaks many of them. These workers used an Italian-made rotating device that knocks the olives off the tree without harming the branches.
The Olive Branch Festival is winding down, with sites open on weekends until November 9th. If you can’t make it this year, be assured that next year it promises to be even richer in events and attractions for domestic and foreign tourists. However, all is not lost – all during Hanukkah week, there will be more tours, activities and workshops (November 28th – December 5th).
More on olives and olive on Green Prophet:
10 Weird and Wonderful Uses For Olive Oil
The World’s Oldest Living Olive Trees
Green Waste Processes For Boutique Olive Presses and Wineries
Preserving Olives The Green Prophet Way
Are your black olives safe to eatÂ
Do you know these 17 olive varieties?
See Severe Animal Abuse at Israel’s Largest Kosher Poultry Slaughterhouse (VIDEO)
More massive-scale animal abuse found in Israel. This time the kosher status of the company is at stake: Following news that cattle and sheep are being severely mistreated at a large kosher slaughterhouse, Israel’s Kolbotek consumer watchdog program has again revealed large scale animal abuse at the country’s leading poultry processing plant, Soglowek.
