Dr. Mehmet Oz sat down to talk with JTA on the Tel Aviv coast last week, but what he really wanted to do was go to the beach. Oz, the surgeon and well-known TV personality, was in Israel for the first time and had a packed itinerary. He traversed the country from the Red Sea to the Golan, lectured Israeli physicians in a northern Israeli hospital and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His host on this whirlwind tour was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the author and sexpert who lives in New Jersey. The two met when they were both on an Oprah Winfrey radio program. Boteach recently gave Oz an award for being a “champion of Jewish values,” and the trip was paid for by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, another recipient of the award.

According to the data provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), in the first half of this year Turkey's steel scrap import volume saw a significant decline of 18.25 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, amounting to 9.3 million mt. In addition, the country's scrap imports in June fell 13.8 percent compared to June 2012, amounting to 1.7 million metric tons.

There’s a new kid that will soon be showing in school cafeterias across four states as part of a USDA pilot program – Chobani Greek yogurt. Last week, the USDA announced it had selected Chobani to provide Greek yogurt to K-12 school meal programs in New York, Idaho, Arizona and Tennessee.