Time for this weeks showcase where i feature the whos who of Adlandpro, this weeks feature is a man of faith, a friend and one who i call brother, Peter Fogel. From Israel, my rabbi's homeland Peter has a story to tell, but first a little story of his country.
The Land of Israel, known in Hebrew as Eretz Yisrael, has been sacred to the Jewish people since the time of the biblical patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Bible has placed this period in the early 2nd millennium BCE. According to the Torah, the Land of Israel was promised to the Jews as their homeland, and the sites holiest to Judaism are located there. Around the 11th century BCE, the first of a series of Jewish kingdoms and states established rule over the region; these Jewish kingdoms and states ruled intermittently for the following one thousand years.
Between the time of the Jewish kingdoms and the 7th-century Muslim conquests, the Land of Israel fell under Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Sassanian, and Byzantine rule.Jewish presence in the region dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE and the resultant large-scale expulsion of Jews. Nevertheless, a continuous Jewish presence in Palestine was maintained, although the main Jewish population shifted from the Judea region to the Galilee; the Mishna and part of the Talmud, among Judaism's most important religious texts, were composed in Israel during this period.The Land of Israel was captured from the Byzantine Empire around 636 CE during the initial Muslim conquests. Control of the region transferred between the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Crusaders over the next six centuries, before falling in the hands of the Mamluk Sultanate, in 1260. In 1516, the Land of Israel became a part of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the region until the 20th century.
Jews living in the Diaspora have long aspired to return to Zion and the Land of Israel. That hope and yearning was articulated in the Bible and is a central theme in the Jewish prayer book. Beginning in the twelfth century, a small but steady stream of Jews began to leave Europe to settle in the Holy Land. After Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, some made their way to the Land of Israel.During the 16th century, the pace stepped up, and large communities struck roots in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias, the four holy cities. In the second half of the 18th century, entire Hasidic communities from Poland, Galicia and Ukraine settled in the Holy Land with their rabbis. 
The first large wave of modern immigration, known as the First Aliyah (Hebrew: ?????), began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe. While the Zionist movement already existed in theory, Theodor Herzl is credited with founding political Zionism, a movement which sought to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, by elevating the Jewish Question to the international plane. In 1896, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), offering his vision of a future state; the following year he presided over the first World Zionist Congress.
The Second Aliyah (1904–1914), began after the Kishinev Pogrom. Some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine.Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews, but those in the Second Aliyah included socialist pioneers who established the kibbutz movement. During World War I, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued what became known as the Balfour Declaration, which "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The Jewish Legion, a group of battalions composed primarily of Zionist volunteers, assisted in the British conquest of Israel. Arab opposition to the plan led to the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of the Jewish defense organization known as the Haganah, from which the Irgun and Lehi split off. In 1922, the League of Nations granted Great Britain, a mandate over Palestine for the express purpose of "placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home".
Jewish immigration continued with the Third Aliyah (1919–1923) and Fourth Aliyah (1924–1929), which together brought 100,000 Jews to Palestine. In the wake of the Jaffa riots in the early days of the Mandate, the British restricted Jewish immigration and territory slated for the Jewish state was allocated to Transjordan.The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led to the Fifth Aliyah, with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This influx resulted in the Arab revolt of 1936–1939 and led the British to cap immigration with the White Paper of 1939. With countries around the world turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet was organized to bring Jews to Palestine. By the end of World War II, Jews accounted for 33% of the population of Palestine, up from 11% in 1922.
During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Arab fedayeen, mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. In 1956, Israel joined a secret alliance with Great Britain and France aimed at recapturing the Suez Canal, which the Egyptians had nationalized (see the Suez Crisis). Despite capturing the Sinai Peninsula, Israel was forced to retreat due to pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights in the Red Sea and the Canal.
At the start of the following decade, Israel captured Adolf Eichmann, an implementer of the Final Solution hiding in Argentina, and brought him to trial. The trial had a major impact on public awareness of the Holocaust. and to date Eichmann remains the only person sentenced to death by Israeli courts.
In 1967, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria massed troops close to Israeli borders, expelled UN peacekeepers and blocked Israel's access to the Red Sea. Israel saw these actions as a casus belli for a pre-emptive strike that launched the Six-Day War, during which it captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Law, passed in 1980, reaffirmed this measure and reignited international controversy over the status of Jerusalem.
In the early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched a wave of attacks against Israeli targets around the world, including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Israel responded with Operation Wrath of God, in which those responsible for the Munich massacre were tracked down and assassinated. On October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a surprise attack against Israel. The war ended on October 26 with Israel successfully repelling Egyptian and Syrian forces but suffering great losses.An internal inquiry exonerated the government of responsibility for the war, but public anger forced Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign.
The 1977 Knesset elections marked a major turning point in Israeli political history as Menachem Begin's Likud party took control from the Labor Party. Later that year, Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat made a trip to Israel and spoke before the Knesset in what was the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state. In the two years that followed, Sadat and Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords and the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and agreed to enter negotiations over an autonomy for Palestinians across the Green Line, a plan which was never implemented.
In 1982, Israel intervened in the Lebanese Civil War to destroy the bases from which the Palestine Liberation Organization launched attacks and missiles at northern Israel. That move developed into the First Lebanon War. Israel withdrew from most of Lebanon in 1986, but maintained a borderland buffer zone until 2000. The First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, broke out in 1987 with waves of violence occurring in the occupied territories. Over the following six years, more than a thousand people were killed in the ensuing violence, much of which was internal Palestinian violence. During the 1991 Gulf War, the PLO and many Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein and Iraqi missile attacks against Israel.
In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became Prime Minister following an election in which his party promoted compromise with Israel's neighbors. The following year, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, on behalf of Israel and the PLO, signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority the right to self-govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in return for recognition of Israel's right to exist and an end to terrorism.In 1994, the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalize relations with Israel. Public support for the Accords waned as Israel was struck by a wave of attacks from Palestinians. The November 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a far-right-wing Jew, as he left a peace rally, shocked the country. At the end of the 1990s, Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, withdrew from Hebron and signed the Wye River Memorandum, giving greater control to the Palestinian National Authority.
Ehud Barak, elected Prime Minister in 1999, began the new millennium by withdrawing forces from Southern Lebanon and conducting negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and U.S. President Bill Clinton at the July 2000 Camp David Summit. During the summit, Barak offered a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but Yasser Arafat rejected it. After the collapse of the talks, Palestinians began the Second Intifada.
Ariel Sharon soon after became the new prime minister in a 2001 special election. During his tenure, Sharon carried out his plan to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and also spearheaded the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier.In January 2006, after Ariel Sharon suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke which left him in a coma, the powers of office were transferred to Ehud Olmert. The kidnappings of Israeli soldiers by Hamas and Hezbollah and the shelling of settlements on Israel's northern border led to a five-week war, known in Israel as the Second Lebanon War. The conflict was brought to end by a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations. After the war, Israel's Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, resigned.
On November 27, 2007, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to begin negotiations on all issues, and to make every effort reach an agreement by the end of 2008.
Israel is located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, bounded by Lebanon to the north, Syria and Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the southwest. The sovereign territory of Israel, excluding all territories captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, is approximately 20,770 square kilometers (8,019 sq mi) in area, of which two percent is water.The total area under Israeli law, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, is 22,072 square kilometers (8,522 sq mi). The total area under Israeli control, including the military-controlled and Palestinian-governed territory of the West Bank, is 27,799 square kilometers (10,733 sq mi).
Despite its small size, Israel is home to a variety of geographic features, from the Negev desert in the south to the mountain ranges of the Galilee, Carmel, and the Golan in the north. The Israeli Coastal Plain on the shores of the Mediterranean is home to seventy percent of the nation's population. East of the central highlands lies the Jordan Rift Valley, which forms a small part of the 6,500-kilometer (4,040-mi) Great Rift Valley. The Jordan River runs along the Jordan Rift Valley, from Mount Hermon through the Hulah Valley and the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth.Unique to Israel and the Sinai Peninsula are makhteshim, or erosion cirques.The largest makhtesh in the world is Ramon Crater in the Negev, which measures 40 kilometers by 8 kilometers (25 mi by 5 mi).
Temperatures in Israel vary widely, especially during the winter. The more mountainous regions can be windy, cold, and sometimes snowy; Mount Hermon's peak is covered with snow most of the year and Jerusalem usually receives at least one snowfall each year. Meanwhile, coastal cities, such as Tel Aviv and Haifa, have a typical Mediterranean climate with cool, rainy winters and long, hot summers. From May to September, rain in Israel is rare. Due to the abundance of sunlight in Israel, the country has become a global leader in the field of solar energy. In 1980, the Knesset passed a law requiring solar water heating systems in new private homes. Israel is now first in the world in the use of solar energy per capita (3% of the primary national energy consumption). As a country with scarce water resources, Israel has developed various water-saving technologies, among them drip irrigation, patented in 1956. I introduce to you Peter Fogel. WE LOVE YOU PETER
Hello Everybody,
This is indeed an honor to be featured in The Sunday Showcase. I'm joining yet anotherclub that I'm honored to belong to.
I was born 12 days after my mother was released from a concentration camp in May 1945 (my father was murdered in one of the concentration camps). My mother and a very good friend were both pregnant and were lucky to survive at all but triply so in their condition. From Poland my mother returned to her native Czechoslovakia and at the age of 2 and a half we immigrated to the USA. The family that was our sponsor was my mother's first cousins and they were like a second family to me. My mother's cousin passed away and a few years later my mother married her husband who immediately adopted me. So Uncle Jack turned into Dad and he was the best father you could ask for.
At the age of 13 we moved to Israel and aside from 14 years I've lived here ever since. I am very fortunate to have dual citizenship both US and Israeli.
I returned to the US and served almost 4 years in the USAF after which I returned to Israel and finished my University studies (BA Business Administration & Economics).
Unfortunately I participated in 3 wars here and many skirmishes while on reserve duty but I won't go into that in this bio.
I got married in 1971 and we have 2 beautiful daughters and 2 magnificent granddaughters (that I spoil to death).
I was in partnership with my brother-in-law for many years in the under garment industry until my wife and I opened the doors of Ruth's Creations a factory for elegant girls clothing. We sold the business due to a terrible economic period (inflation of 20-30% per month) and at that time I went to South Africa and my wife and younger daughter joined me there after 6 months. I owned 3 private businesses and was also the President of a local company owned by a Singaporean group. After spending a very fruitful period in SA, I sold my businesses and we returned to Israel.
After returning to Israel I took "time off" from work and got involved as a volunteer in local charities and enjoyed helping others so much it's become a habit and a way of life.
Just over 6 years ago I decided that it's time to go back to work and invested in restaurants. I enjoyed this so much that I spent nearly 15 hours a day in the businesses. It had everything I enjoyed, meeting new people, insuring that they received not only the best food but the best service and of course "kibitzing" with them.
All good things come to an end. The 15 hours a day took its toll so when I got an offer I couldn't refuse I sold the restaurants and became a free agent again.
Luckily during the restaurant period when I had "free time" I became involved in Internet and Network Marketing. I decided to do this full time and haven't looked back since and enjoy every minute of it. Of course like all of us I've made mistakes but being on a constant learning curve I've learned from my mistakes and from my mentors that put me back in the right direction.
All the best to all of you & Shalom,
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/281772/default.aspx
Peter
I've become very involved at CMU7 and I highly recommend that all of you join us there. The tools, resources, live chat rooms, autoresponders, free webhosting and much more are only a small part of what you can expect to receive as a Free or Elite member. Click on the banner and become a member of the CMU7 family.
Ofri saying hello to the world
My Daughter Yifat her husband Doron, Ofri and Ma'ayan