NJN-38.
New Jerusalem News.
26 October, 2011, 28 Tishrei
Contents:
1. 58 Percent of Jewish Israelis are Religious or 'Traditionalist'
2. Scientists Discover New Life in the Dead Sea.
3. Muslim Iraq Expels Hundreds of Thousands of Arab Christians!
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1. 58 Percent of Jewish Israelis are Religious or 'Traditionalist'
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148286
by Gil Ronen
A clear majority of Israeli Jews see themselves as religious or 'traditional,' according to newly released data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
Eight percent of Jews define themselves as hareidi, 12 percent as religious, 13 percent as religious traditionalists, 25 percent as "traditionalists who are not so religious" and the remaining 42 percent as non-religious or secular.
The statistics released for the approaching Rosh Hashanah relate to the end of 2010. At that time, the Israeli population numbered 7,797,400 people, of whom 5,874,300 are Jews, comprising 75.4 percent, and 1,600,100 are Arabs, comprosing 20.5 percent of the total. Another 318,000 are neither Jews nor Arabs (Druze, Circassian etc.).
About 217,000 foreign laborers were not included in the population total.
The general population is rising at about 1.9 percent annually, as it has been for the past eight years. The Jewish population is growing by 1.7 percent annually, while the Muslim population is increasing by 2.5 percent each year.
Jews are marrying later every year: About 64.4 percent of male Jews aged 25-29 are still unmarried, as are 45.5 percent of the women in that age range. In the year 2000, these numbers were 54 percent and 38.1 percent, respectively.
Among Muslims, 43.5 percent of men and 19 percent of women in this age group are unmarried.
2. Scientists Discover New Life in the Dead Sea
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148129
by Hana Levi Julian, MSW, LCSW-R
Deep beneath the sea bed of a body of water long believed incapable of sustaining life, scientists have discovered new micro-organisms.
Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev announced Wednesday they have found deep fresh water springs on the floor of the Dead Sea. These secret springs are apparently providing fresh water to the rapidly shrinking lake.
Meanwhile, a parallel study being conducted by German scientists has found new life forms in the mineral-laden waters.
The micro-organisms were discovered growing around the fissures in the sea floor.
The water level of the Dead Sea is dropping at an alarming rate ' close to a meter a year, according to environmentalists.
The two research teams have been exploring groundwater springs that emanate from the sea floor in order to understand how the infusion of fresh water from the bottom of the sea impacts the unique ecosystem in the area.
The existence of the springs has been known for decades, as people have seen the ripples of water on the surface of the lake. However, scientists have discovered deep springs that were not visible from the shore.
Professor Jonathan Laronne and research student Yaniv Munwes developed the first system to directly measure spring discharge and to study the structure of the upward jet-like, plume flow as part of the German-funded SUMAR project. The two are members of BGU's Department of Geography and Environmental Development. Professional divers have also been involved in the work.
The findings show that there are systems of complex springs, hundreds of meters long and up to 30 meters deep. The springs appear through craters as large as 15 meters in diameter and 20 meters deep, with steep, finely laminated walls where there are alternating layers of sediment and minerals.
'By developing a measurement system for these springs, we will be able to determine more accurately how much water is really coming in to the Dead Sea,' commented Laronne.
While researchers have known for decades that the 'Dead Sea' is a misnomer, the rich variety of life as evidenced in the vicinity of the springs was unexpected, said Dr. Danny Ionescu of the Microsensor Group, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany. Ionescu is leading the study of the micro-organisms.
While fish are not present, carpets of micro-organisms that cover large sea floor areas contain considerable richness of species, he said. The scientist has found some that were previously unknown in such highly saline environments, many unknown to science altogether.
'The micro-organisms in the Dead Sea water mainly belong to the domain Archaea, and they number around 1,000-10,000 per ml ' much lower than regular sea water,' Ionescu said. But never before have microbial mats or biofilms been found in the Dead Sea, he added, and not much is known about sediment micro-organisms there.
These are not the same micro-organisms and algae which created a red tint in the waters of the Dead Sea in 1992, Ionescu said. Their discovery creates more questions.
An additional team is examining the connection between the mountain aquifer, springs occurring on land and submarine springs.
Dr. Christian Siebert, Dr. Stefan Geyer and doctoral student Ulf Mallast from the Hemholtz Center for Environmental Research ' UFZ Halle, Germany, will explore the systems and their chemical properties together with Dead Sea expert Professor Aharon Oren of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
3. Muslim Iraq Expels Hundreds of Thousands of Arab Christians!
Preserving Iraq's Assyrians: Federalism
by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
Assyrian International News Agency
October 24, 2011
http://www.meforum.org/3079/assyrians-iraq-federalism
Extract:
As U.S. troops continue to pull out from Iraq, it is worth visiting the question of what future there is, if any, for the country's Assyrians. Since the 2003 American-led invasion, the Christian population has declined from some 1.2-1.5 million to 400-800,000 today, and it is undeniable that Christians constitute a disproportionate percentage of Iraqi refugees. In fact, it is thought that around 40% of refugees are Christian, even though prior to the war they comprised at most 5% of Iraq's population of roughly 30 million.
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