Palestinian Authority Arabs Monday morning hurled rocks at motorists on Route 443, which connects Modi’in with Jerusalem, despite two checkpoints on the highway that also serves as alternate route to Highway 1 to Jerusalem.

No injuries were reported.

The Supreme Court three years ago ordered that the government open the road to Palestinian Authority drivers, ruling that security could be provided without prohibiting them from using the road. Terrorist attacks killed six people on Route 443 during the height of the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War, and the roads was closed to the PA in 2002.

The Iron Dome anti-missile defense system was tested near the city of Modi’in, located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, before  being removed on Wednesday, Haaretz reported.

A battery stationed there would protect the Jerusalem area from rocket attacks. At least two rockets were fired from Gaza at Jerusalem during last November’s Operation Pillar of Defense, landing in open areas. One of them exploded close to an Arab village in Gush Etzion.

Iron Dome systems have been deployed throughout central Jerusalem for tests in recent days, according to reports.

Israel has five Iron Dome batteries, which have been stationed throughout the country as the need arises.

Last month, an Iron Dome battery stationed in the north was unusable for more than four weeks after sustaining flood damage in January. The battery was in storage when it flooded, damaging its electrical system, which has since been repaired and is now functional.

It could be a comment on the performance onstage, but the operators of the municipal Cultural Hall are livid over a few recent cases in which small children relieved themselves in the public arena, not in the bathroom – with the knowledge of their parents.

Hall Director Dina Peled, who related that “one time the mother of a small child took him to pee in a trash can in the Hall. We were shocked by the incident, but apparently it was just the beginning. Another mother took the child to defecate over a garbage can. We hadn’t recovered from those two events, when, last Saturday, we got another case: a mother left her child’s soiled underwear in the hall, near everyone, and left.”

“If a child has an ‘accident,’ it is perfectly acceptable to take the soiled undies and leave it in the bathroom garbage can,” Peled said. “These things happen, it’s happened to all of us, as parents and as children. But to leave it in on the parquet floor in the auditorium, in front of everyone? Can anyone understand such a thing?”

The Modi’in Maccabim Reut Culture Hall was inaugurated 5 years ago, and Peled has been the director from the start. She told The Jewish Press that she’s been in the field of establishing and running cultural facilities for 25 years, and this is the very first time that she’s encountered such a phenomenon.

Peled emphasized that in each case, the Culture Hall’s security cameras documented the parents in action. “We don’t want to shame them by starting to search for them publicly, but they did things that should not be done. The bathrooms are a short walk away from the spot where they were – and it wasn’t an accident, or something beyond their control, they simply didn’t care. Letting their child relieve himself over a trash can when the bathrooms are six feet away is just unbelievable. There are available bathrooms near the hall entrance. These parents’ behavior simply hurts all of us.”

Peled told The Jewish Press that, having watched all four tapes, she found no common denominator to the offending parents, in this community which is comprised equally of religious and secular Jews.

It is interesting to note that while showing a film about parents who encourage their children to do their business in public is most likely against the law in Israel, the actual act is not. Peled told The Jewish Press she did not think these were violations of the law, but she insisted they certainly violated any sense of public decency and ethics.

The Culture Hall team calls on all their guests to complain if they see similar inappropriate behavior: “If we get there, we can take care of this offense immediately. It doesn’t make sense that our customers will have to suffer the consequences of these behaviors,” said Peled.

Late last week, as the sun was setting, I stood in the center of an archaeological ruin in the town of Modi’in, Israel, about a five-to-ten minute walk from my home. Israel has thousands of archaeological sites, some of tremendous historical and religious significance and others which will be investigated but likely bulldozed someday, as they are deemed of lesser value and standing in the way of the modern state’s progress.

What made that evening very special was the fact that it was the start of Shabbat, the seventh night of Chanukah and the site was Umm el-Umdan, containing an ancient rural village, mikveh and beit knesset, confirmed as one of the oldest ever unearthed in all of Israel, dating back to the Hasmonean Period. Given its location and dimensions, some archaeologists contend that it was very possibly the home of the Maccabees themselves. The beit knesset was unearthed in 2002 and according to the Israel Antiquities Authority the layout is similar to only a handful dating from the Second Temple period such as those discovered in Gamla and Herodium.

A large gathering of men and women from the surrounding Buchman neighborhood had entered the site. For the past several years the residents have come to this place to welcome Shabbat and pay tribute to the Maccabees. The men stood in the central part of the site, in a rectangular area that was probably the main floor of the beit knesset. In front of me was a small indentation in the stone framework surrounding the floor, perfectly positioned to accommodate an ark to hold Torah scrolls. As I looked past it, I realized that it was perfectly oriented on this hill to face Jerusalem. Our prayers began- we completed mincha and proceeded with a very beautiful kabbalat Shabbat service incorporating the music of Shlomo Carlebach.

However, it was not lost on any of us that this site has remained unmarked, undeveloped and virtually ignored by both municipal officials and our national government. Although Umm el-Umdan holds a prominently high position on the national registry of “Heritage Sites,” the only thing of note that has occurred here is that the weeds engulfing its large stones have periodically been pulled by municipal workers. The average city resident doesn’t even know the location of the site although it lies squarely along the main entry road to Modi’in from the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. In fact, as we were preparing to pray last night, a jogger came by and shouted a thank you to us, saying “I never knew this was here.”

While standing and praying in the quickly receding daylight and having great difficulty reading from my siddur, just to our right, perhaps 200 yards away, I could see Modi’in’s new pride and joy: our recently opened extreme sports park lit up as brightly as Yankee Stadium at a night game and full of skate boarders. I’ve been told that it’s the biggest and best one in the country. The juxtaposition of the two sites really struck me: all I could think of was Maccabees vs. Hellenists. Please don’t get me wrong. I love skate boards. In fact in high school back in the 1960s I owned a first generation board and used it often. I believe Israel has room for all of us, no matter what path we choose to go down.

But that’s the rub— How could we have been standing those 200 yards away on this incredibly meaningful site, in the town where the Maccabees’ efforts assured Jewish continuity and be in the dark? How could this archaeological site be so ignored and treated almost as a nuisance by the municipal government, without – aside from the weeds being plucked – a shekel having been invested in site preservation? Without a shekel spent to put up a proper historical marker acknowledging the beit knesset’s existence in our town? Without even a string of cheap light bulbs strung to allow people to pray comfortably and in safety at the site? Maybe what we have forgotten is how to be modern day Maccabean activists who need to let our countrymen know how we feel.