Arrested on the Temple Mount

Arrested on the Temple Mount

By: Tzvi Fishman

Published: June 28th, 2012

The world is truly upside down – a sure sign that Mashiach’s coming is right around the corner. Incredibly, as The Jewish Press reported yesterday, the highly respected Rabbi Yisrael Ariel was banned from the Temple Mount for setting it above his highest joy – the holiest and most cherished site in the Jewish world – just like a Jew is supposed to. Some terrible crime, isn’t it?
Since Israel Book Month is still with us, with special discount sales in all of the bookstores, and since I wrote about this very topic in my novel, The Discman and the Guru, I’m posting an excerpt from the book. It’s wonderful reading, especially for our young people, certainly more meaningful and Jewish than Harry Potter and The DaVinci Code, or the vampire stories that seem to be so popular today. And it certainly beats smoking marijuana and watching Internet porn.
For those who accuse me of promoting my books for mercenary reasons, the claim is totally unfounded, mainly because my natural audience is Jews, and the majority simply doesn’t appreciate the importance of real Jewish literature. And if someone does order it, I give the money to charity, so don’t worry about making me rich.

Read More:

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/blogs/felafel-on-rye/arrested-on-the-temple-mount/2012/06/28/

Feiglin: Israeli Return to Sinai Inevitable

By Gil Hoffman

Recapturing the Sinai Peninsula that Israel gave to Egypt in the 1979 peace treaty is a foregone conclusion following the victory of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy in Egypt’s presidential election, far-right Likud activist Moshe Feiglin said Sunday night.

Feiglin said he was not surprised by the Brotherhood taking over Israel’s neighbor to the South. He noted that the peace agreement, which then-prime minister Menachem Begin signed with then-Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat, was never implemented on the Egyptian side even though 4,500 Jews living in Sinai lost their homes. “There never was peace,” Feiglin said.

“Those who still dream sweet dreams of Begin’s Camp David Accords and Yitzhak Rabin’s Oslo agreements need to wake up and see that what happened in Egypt is the continuation of the Iranian revolution, and Islamic fundamentalism will take over the entire region. It is clear that in the end, reality will require Israel to return to where we were before [Sinai] and unfortunately withdrew.”

National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari called Morsy’s victory “the final nail in the coffin of the illusion of the peace with Egypt that we paid a heavy price for.”

Opposition leader Shelly Yechimovich said that peace with Egypt is of the highest strategic importance, and Israel must do everything in its power to maintain it.

“Despite the complexity involved, we must conduct a dialogue with whoever is elected to lead Egypt,” she said.

Labor MK Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said last week that Israel must make overtures to Morsy and his Brotherhood if they won.

“We have no choice but to find a way to start a dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood,” Ben-Eliezer said. “We need to help Morsy understand that it is in Egypt’s interest to maintain peace with us, no less than Israelis realize that it is in our interest to maintain peace with them.”
 

Egypt: The Party's Over By Moshe Feiglin

June 28, '12

This week, during Russian president Putin's visit to Israel, President Peres emitted the following pearl of wisdom: "The peace treaty with Egypt saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides."

Of the two states that fought the last all-out war with Israel – Egypt and Syria – only Egypt made "peace" with us. According to Peres' logic, we should have had hundreds of thousands of fatalities on the Syrian front since the Yom Kippur War. But just the opposite is true. The Golan Heights that border on Syria are actually the quietest frontier in Israel, with zero fatalities. By contrast, Israel's south is bleeding – and has been for years.

For those who did not cheer the emperor whose new clothes were conspicuously absent – both in Menachem Begin's Camp David and in the Rabin/Peres Oslo Accords – the current developments in Egypt come as no surprise. There is not and never has been peace between Israel and Egypt. Iran and Syria fight us in the north through their Hizbollah proxy. Egypt fights us in the south with its Hamas proxy. If the Egyptians had wanted to, they could have stopped the convoys of Katyusha rockets and all the other armaments streaming into Gaza from the Sinai.

Many Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have lost their lives on the Egyptian border. Israel's entire southern region is now under fire by merit of this "peace." And this is without even mentioning the civilian price that we have paid for "peace" with Egypt: trafficking in drugs and women, infiltrators from Africa and other miserable side effects.

The Israeli "peace industry" made sure to keep up the adulation for the emperor's new clothes. They blocked the development of Israeli gas fields so that Israel would continue to purchase oil (that was discovered in the Sinai and developed by Israel after the Six Day War) and gas from Egypt. This arrangement padded the pockets of Egyptian top brass and also those of some select Israelis, who made sure to present a thin façade of pseudo-normal relations with Egypt. We are still paying the price of this arrangement with our outsized electric bills and severe air pollution.

The entire lie of peace with Egypt is now exploding in our faces, and that is just fine. Hopefully, it will not cost lives to restore our southern border to the kind of peace we have on our Syrian border: peace based on the IDF's deterrence.

Arab Rage: Putin Recognized Jerusalem's Jewish Past

At Kotel, Russian president said "Here we see how the Jewish past is etched into the stones of Jerusalem."


Arab Muslims are enraged by remarks made by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kotel, recognizing Jerusalem's Jewish roots.
Putin visited the Kotel Tuesday night and toured the Kotel tunnels. He also said: "Here, we see how the Jewish past is etched into the stones of Jerusalem."
This short remark has aroused the wrath of local Arab leaders, who vehemently deny that the Temple Mount is where the Jewish Temples stood and that Jerusalem was the seat of the Hebrew monarchy for many centuries, long before Mohammed was born.
Attorney Zahi Najidat, spokesman for the Islamic Movement in "the Palestinian Interior" (i.e. – the state of Israel), denounced Putin for allegedly siding with Israel, and mentioned Russia's support for Bashar Assad "who is slaughtering his own countrymen."

Read More:

Arab Rage.... 

Alice Walker & Israel.....The Back Story

by Yvette Alt Miller

The Pulitzer Prize winner’s fanatical worldview has morphed into Jew-hatred.

I'll never forget the first time I watched the film version of Alice Walker's masterful 1982 novel The Color Purple. Both book and movie brilliantly depict the savagery and violence against blacks in the American South and in South Africa in the 1930s.
The story is about Celie, beaten and impregnated by her step-father; Celie's friend Sophia, unjustly jailed and horribly abused in prison; and Celie's sister Nettie, a missionary in South Africa, ministering to brutalized people denied civil and political rights. It's a depressing novel, but also an important one, stirring readers to fight injustice. For this, Alice Walker was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
You'd think after writing about these abuses, author Alice Walker would enjoy visiting a country like Israel: a robust democracy in which conflicting views are forced to coexist. After all, Israel has an open and vibrant press. In Israel, the vote is extended to all, regardless of ethnicity or religion. Members of Israel's Arab minority serve at all levels of government, from Parliament to Supreme Court justices. The U.S. State Department describes Israel as a liberal democracy where minority rights are respected, and disputes are settled fairly without prejudice in the nation's courts.
But instead of finding in Israel a common liberal sensibility, Walker recently announced that she won't let The Color Purple be translated furthermore into Hebrew. (A previous Hebrew version came out in 1984.)
Why? Because, according to Walker, life in Israel today is "worse” than the segregation she suffered as a youth in the Jim Crow South, and also "worse" than South African Apartheid.
Perhaps Walker's criticisms say more about her than they do about Israel.
Walker's parents were impoverished sharecroppers. Calling Israel "worse" than the Jim Crow South in which they lived cheapens their history and the histories of millions of African Americans who for years couldn't vote (a right extended to all in Israel) and who couldn't even to sit on buses and in restaurants with white people.
No such barriers exist in Israel, where people of all religions and ethnicities mingle in public and private places.
And to call Israel - with its universal suffrage, internationally-recognized judicial system, and rainbow society of immigrants (including thousands of political refugees from African and Arab countries) - "worse" than a regime like apartheid South Africa is just plain wrong. Again, it cheapens the history of those who suffered and died under apartheid.
Related Article: Anti-Semitism in 3D

At the Core

What lies behind this irrational hatred for the Jews?
Alice Walker's daughter, Rebecca Walker, offers some insight with a searing description of her unusual childhood.
For starters, Rebecca was fathered by Mel Leventhal, a Jewish lawyer and the son of Holocaust survivors. A mixture of guilt and disdain may have played some role here.
Yet more – ideology was always more important to Alice than people, and she espoused the radical view that childhood enslaved women. Walker ignored and neglected Rebecca for years. Resentful of the chain of motherhood, she essentially left Rebecca to fend for herself from age 13.
Ultimately, Alice took the radical step of severing their relationship: “saying that our relationship had been inconsequential for years and that she was no longer interested in being my mother.” (London Daily Mail: “How My Mother's Fanatical Views Tore Us Apart”)
With Walker's latest salvo against Israel, her family's personal tragedy has lately become a tragedy for the entire Jewish community, as well. Alice Walker has turned her naïve, one-dimensional view of the world away from the crucible of her family and onto the world stage, bringing the same warped view to bear.
Related Article: An Open Letter to Alice Walker

The Oldest Hatred

Anti-Semitism has been called the world’s oldest hatred. Through the years, it has provided people with an easy scapegoat for the world's suffering: if only there weren't Jews, everything would be great.
In modern times, this hatred is often redirected to Israel, painting the country and its citizens as uniquely evil and sinister on the world stage.
Sadly, Walker isn't the only famous person to tarnish her reputation and legacy by spurious attacks on the Jewish state.
In recent years, Nobel Prize-winning Archbishop Desmond Tutu has become known less for his struggle against South African Apartheid, and more and more for his obsession with Israel and Jews: saying it's time to forgive Hitler; talking about sinister Jewish lobbies; and repeating other bizarre anti-Semitic and anti-Israel tropes.
Plenty others allow their legacy to rot into anti-Israel rhetoric. Mairead Corrigan Maguire won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for her work to end violence between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, but lately she's been squandering her moral capital bashing Israel obsessively, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and embracing radical anti-Israel campaigns. José Saramago, the Portuguese writer who won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, was better known in the last years for lurid statements comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Tom Paulin was once known as one of Britain's greatest living poets: an Oxford professor and frequent fixture on British television and radio programs. Until lately, that is, when he's compromised his considerable legacy by questioning Israel’s very right to exist and calling on some Israelis to be "shot dead."
In all these cases hostility toward Israel begins to spill over into hostility toward Jews. Alice Walker's opposition to people reading her books in Hebrew is a move against the language of the entire Jewish people. To target the language in this way is to move vilification out of the political realm and make it personal.
What can we do in the face of such anti-Israel mania, especially on the part of well-respected cultural figures?
On one hand, we can and must educate ourselves to counter factual inaccuracies. There is no shortage of pro-Israel websites; the Jewish Virtual Library contains a treasure trove of information.
On a deeper level, perhaps the most effective way to counter anti-Israeli hatred is to recognize it for what it often is, a poisonous world view that hurts its host as much as its object. It appeals to those looking for a simplistic answer to complex questions; to those to whom the world is either black or white, good or evil; to people who lack the will to explore more complex understandings.
Sadly, Alice Walker's extreme views on Israel indicate a pervasive problem with fanaticism that, according to her daughter, has distorted her entire life. The danger for the rest of us is that her statements create an atmosphere in which ever more virulent rhetoric about Israel becomes the norm.
This article can be read on-line at: http://www.aish.com/jw/s/Alice_Walker__Israel.html

"In every generation, there are always a few who understand; Always understand... even if you remain among the few." - Meir Kahane


Avigdor Gidon Rudofsky

The Mitzvah of Living in Israel - Meir Kahane

Eretz Yisrael is acquired through suffering and devotion. The deterioration in our values, and the blunting of Israel’s emotional attachment to Eretz Yisrael, emerged because we distorted the halachah, due to the wretched exile which conquered our minds and souls. We are also tempted to flee the difficult challenge and duty of isolating ourselves from the nations, and the hardships of earning a living in rebuilding our homeland. It all goes back to our Sages’ comment in Berachot 5a: “God gave Israel three fine gifts and all come only through suffering: Torah, Eretz Yisrael and the World-to-Come.”
A person’s whole life is a test to see whether he will accept the yoke of Heaven and of mitzvot. There is nothing precious that does not exact a heavy price. Eretz Yisrael, a precious gift, requires self-sacrifice, as befits a treasure of the Chosen People.
Wherever we go, we are obligated to prove our faith and trust in G-d, and certainly so in Eretz Yisrael, the Chosen Land, symbol of Israel’s isolation and their belief that “The Lord alone guides them” (Deut. 32:12). Yet time after time we have failed in this. Our Sages learned (Tanchuma, Tazria, 6):
“A kohen who used to observe plague-spots (see Lev. 13) became poor and wished to leave the Land. He summoned his wife, saying… “Let me teach you how to observe plague spots. If you see that the well-spring of a person’s hair has dried up, know that he is smitten, for God created a well-spring for every single hair to drink from”… His wife replied, “If God created for every hair a well-spring of its own, how much more so will He provide a livelihood for you, who are a human being, with much hair, and have children whom you support!” Therefore, she did not let him leave the Land.

Read More:

 http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/blogs/felafel-on-rye/over-1000000-jews-in-new-york-and-god-weeps/2012/06/15/0/

Greek Travel Warning - May they choke on the Drachma already

Greece - I guess the Chanukkah story is not finished....

Greece’s neo-Nazi party Chryssi Avghi (Golden Dawn) received 6.97% of the vote, winning 21 seats in the 300-member Parliament.

This is not good news, but it is also not a surprise...Remember this is one of the Countries that taunts black Soccer players with chants of Black Monkey etc...

No a nice people.
Judge and prepare to be judged Greece.

Population Change, Knesset Seats Change?

So evolving  Ultra Orthodox birth rates have changed the Jewish Demographics in NY. More Torah, more back to basics...This is not a bad thing. The concept that to be Ultra Orthodox and not move to Israel remains confusing. At least in Israel the Government could (and will)  actually care about Torah.

In Israel the same type of population change is occurring.  What will happen when the Religious right can vote the Left out....Not with fake Bibi, but with an elected Torah Jew?

Things will then change. But when will Kahane's vision begin to be implemented? Kahane Tzadak!

Jewish Refugees....Where is the UN (United Arab Nations)

More than 850,000 Jews have been uprooted/driven out/ attacked etc  from their homes in Arab countries since and only since the re-establishment of Israel. These were communities as old as 2500 years.

These communities were eliminated in their entirety. businesses and properties were stolen. Jewish homes were destroyed. Pogroms left synagogues looted, graveyards desecrated and thousands dead.

When will Jew's sue for reparations?
Who will stand up for us? Nobody will!

Meir Kahane was right!!

Kahane Tzadak!!!!

Israel Has the Better Title to the Territory of Palestine, Including the Whole of Jerusalem

Israel Has the Better Title to the Territory of  Palestine, Including the Whole of Jerusalem

International law makes it clear:

      All of Israel's wars with its Arab neighbors were in self-defence.

      Professor, Judge Schwebel, wrote in What Weight to Conquest: 

"(a) a state [Israel] acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self-defense;
"(b) as a condition of its withdrawal from such territory, that State may require the institution of security measures reasonably designed to ensure that that territory shall not again be used to mount a threat or use of force against it of such a nature as to justify exercise of self-defense;
"(c) Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title.
"... as between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively, in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has the better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt."

Settlements - the obstacle to peace?

First they are RE-settlements and Israel is fully entitled to all of the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea!

 

The "Mandate for Palestine" an historical League of Nations document, laid down the Jewish legal right under international law to settle anywhere in western Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law. Fifty-one member countries - the entire League of Nations - unanimously declared on July 24, 1922:

"Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country."

On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the "Mandate for Palestine":

"Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected."

The are no settlements/occupied land...unless you refer to the Arabs as being occupiers.
Kahane Tzadak! Meir had it 100% right, expel the Arab 5th column before it is more dangerous than it has already become.

 

“Do you know that the US is the number-one delegitimizer of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem?”

However, there is still something that bothers me about Christian Zionism. When I attended the CUFI Washington Conference two years ago I felt that there was an absence of meaningful pro-Israel action-based content and a paucity of serious policy discussion. To be sure, there was lots of flag-waving and Hebrew singing and proclamations of standing together with Israel. But standing with Israel is not only about wearing blue and white or saying “Ani Yisraeli”.
For Christian Zionism to win the ideological war against replacement theology, and earn Jewish trust, Christian Zionism needs to become more than a cheerleader for Israel – it needs to take a stand on real issues. Standing with Israel means backing Israel when we face our enemies. Today, those enemies use, more and more, the tool of delegitimization to remove the underpinnings of the Jewish State. Shockingly, some of the US Government’s own policies lend a hand to the delegitimization campaign, and it is in this arena where Israel-loving American citizens in general, and American Christian Zionists in particular, can make a difference. But so far they have not been empowered to do so.

Read the whole story ----

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/dear-pastor-hagee-and-christians-united-for-israel-cufi/2012/06/07/

Judgement Day? Has it happened?

Do we not remember? Is it possible that we have been judged?
Is it possible that we are here to fix ourselves?


One Last Chance

Make sure to get your Slingshot.

What will be our slingshot?

Economics?
Cyber Wars?
Undeniable Ethics?
Hashem?

Are you a Religious Pre-Zionist or a Secular Post-Zionist?

1)  Is it over? Has Israeli been returned to the Jewish people and do you believe that is it? Do you believe that it is now time for Israel to join the rest of the world and try to fit in...be accepted?

2)  Do you believe that we are on the road and that we must be the light unto Nations and show the way. Continue to show the moral compass for the World? Do you believe that we must continue to pray and be Observant...more every Day... and wait for Hashem to send the Moshiach to Rebuild the Temple and
raise our ancestors sleeping in the dust?

What would make you choose 1. I would guess only the belief that there is no G-d.

Why would you choose 2:

a) Israels very survival.
b) Israel - since the war for independence...not losing wars in which the odds were always stacked against them - massively!
c) Torah
d) Mishnah
and so on...

It is clear to me that we are on the 2nd path and I am very glad of it.

B"H

Avi

Letter to a Reform Jew

From Rabbi Meir Kahane

My dear Brother/Sister Jew,

This letter is long overdue and for that I apologize. But its lateness is compensated for, I hope, by my love for you and for all those who describe themselves as “Reform Jews,” a love that motivates the letter and that permeates its every word. In short, it would not have been written did I not care for you as my brother/sister. And, most important, it is written as a cry to you to help prevent the greatest of all tragedies: the permanent division of the Jewish people into two camps, separate and forever apart. And so, I beg you to have the patience and courage to read this letter fully, and think it over carefully.
Let me preface my message by saying that I really do not want to refer to you as “Reform.” I really believe that there is no such thing as a “Reform Jew,” (can you really give me a positive definition of this, that goes beyond the anarchy of “a Jew who decides for himself what Jewish laws, customs or idiosyncrasies he will observe?) No, there are no Reform Jews, there are only Reform rabbis and temples; and that is the crux of my words to you.
It is, one might argue, a personal choice that one makes when he decides to abandon the traditions of Judaism (that which you call “Orthodoxy,” another word I abhor). The personal decision of a Jew to cease observing the Sabbath or eating kosher food or adhering to the rituals of the commandments is a source of great sorrow but it is, hopefully, not a national or, certainly, not a permanent tragedy. For on the one hand, this is a personal decision that in no way directly affects other Jews, and, on the other hand, it is a thing that is reversible, that can be changed through personal decision to return to the ways of Torah. In a word, the desecration of the Sabbath this week, by an individual, can, hopefully, be turned into observance next week and the damage repaired. And so, until a certain point in modern Jewish history, the growth of Reform was sad but not necessarily a national tragedy.
But that has changed and, today, my brother/sister, Reform poses a national threat to the Jewish people and a permanent one that opens the door to the division of the Jewish people into two nations that will not be able to marry or join together in the special unity of Judaism or Jewishness. And that, my brother/sister, is the greatest sin and crime that a Jew can ever commit.


Read More:

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/blogs/felafel-on-rye/letter-to-a-reform-jew/2012/06/01/0/

19th Annual Israel Day Concert - 6/3 NYC - Central Park...

Date: Sunday, June 3, 2012  |  Time: 2:30-7:30 PM  |  Cost: Free

Location (rain or shine):

Central Park Summerstage, located at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park. Enter Park at 5th Ave. & 72nd St.

Special Guest Speaker:
MK Danny Danon Chairman, World Likud, Deputy Speaker, Knesset

Featuring: YEHUDA GREEN • SHLOIME DACHS • AVI PERETZ & OURI BITAN • AVNER LEVY • TAL VAKNIN & SHLOMI AHARONI direct from Israel• JERRY MARKOVITZ • NEW YORK BOYS CHOIR LED BY YITZY BALD •CHAIM KISS • IZZY KIEFFER • Introducing "Jewish Star"Junior Finalists MENDEL PIEKARSKI & SHLOMO SKOLNIK • NATIONAL ANTHEM & HATIKVA PERFORMED BY CHAZZAN JOEL KAPLAN Congregation Beth Sholom, Lawrence, NY • EMCEE NACHUM SEGAL

Special Appearance by: RABBI DR. ELIE ABADIE, Edmond J. Safra Synagogue. •RABBI DAVID ALGAZE, World Committee. for Land of Israel / Havurat Yisrael• RABBI CHAIM DRUCKMAN, Former MK, Recipient Israel Prize •SCOTT FELTMAN, Executive Vice President One Israel Fund •MARK LANGFAN, Executive Council, American Friends of Ateret Cohanim/ Jerusalem Chai• JOSEF MENDELEVITCH, Former Refusenik •RABBI GERSHON TANNENBAUM, Director Igud HaRabonim

Israel Day Concert in Central Park...

Anticipating US Intervention in Syria, Israel, Iran, Prepare for Clash

Northern Command Chief Maj. Gen. Yair Golan.
Photo Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Office

Addressing the Iranian threat, Northern Command Chief Maj. Gen. Yair Golan said, “Iran is here, we fight an indirect war against Iran on a daily basis – against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The negative influence of Iran is extremely significant in our region as well as its involvement both here and in Syria.”
Maj. Gen. Golan spoke on Wednesday at the Bar-Ilan University Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, addressing the current security conditions at Israel’s northern border in the face of terrorist organizations operating against Israel at the various fronts.
“The IDF has the capability to take over in a relatively short period of time the launching sites which threaten Israel’s home front, and defeat Hezbollah terrorists at these sites,” emphasized Maj. Gen. Golan. “In all my years in the IDF, I fought against Hezbollah, I know their fighting techniques and can confidently say they are capable of interrupting but not stopping the IDF.”

Read More:

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/in-face-of-us-intervention-in-syria-israel-iran-prepare-for-clash/2012/05/31/

Bilingual Boundary Stone Discovered at Tel Gezer

The 12th boundary stone from Tel Gezer, discovered over a decade before this latest find. The bilingual boundary stone features Greek and Hebrew text with personal and geographical titles.
Photo Credit: Bibleplaces.com, Judah and the Dead Sea Collection

Archaeologists working at the Biblical site of Tel Gezer discovered a boundary stone inscribed with both Greek and Hebrew text dating to the period of conflict between the Seleucids and the Maccabees. This is the thirteenth known boundary stone found after over a century of excavations at Gezer, and it is the first to be found in over a decade. Archaeologists from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary also rediscovered another boundary stone originally discovered in the 19th-century by the French explorer Charles Claremont-Ganneau, but lost to the archaeological community for over a century.
In a Biblical Archaeology Review article promoting preservation at Gezer, BAR editor Hershel Shanks described the Biblical and archaeological history of the site.

Read More:

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/bilingual-boundary-stone-discovered-at-tel-gezer/

Illuminating Jeremiah’s Dungeon – And The Temple Mount Myth

The Municipality of Jerusalem and Mayor Nir Barkat are trying to stay on everyone’s good side. On the one hand, the city is working together with the Ir Amim organization – a group that promotes dividing Yerushalayim along Arab-Jewish lines – jointly sponsoring a seminar on the controversial topic of urban planning for eastern Jerusalem.
This collusion has so enraged some supporters of a united Jerusalem that they have called on those who love Jerusalem to try to unseat Mayor Barkat in the next municipal election.
Still, his “infraction” is only verbal; as Meretz party candidate Attorney Talia Sasson recently told her co-believers, “We on the [anti-nationalist] left like to talk nicely, but it’s time to take ourselves in hand and actually do something!”

Read More:

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/keeping-jerusalem/illuminating-jeremiahs-dungeon-and-the-temple-mount-myth/2012/05/31/

Satellite Images Show Crews Hiding Evidence at Iran Nuclear Site

New satellite images show possible recent nuclear activity at the Parchin facility in Iran as well as attempts to hide evidence of past activity.
A May 25 image of the facility east of Tehran revealed “ground-scraping activity” and the presence of bulldozers, according to diplomats quoted by international news services who attended a closed-door briefing by United Nations nuclear agency officials on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the Institute for Science and International Security posted a similar image on its website. Its image showed that two buildings that previously had been located on the site were razed, according to reports.

Read More:

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/satellite-images-show-crews-hiding-evidence-at-iran-nuclear-site/2012/06/01/

Ominous Déjà Vu

Ominous Déjà Vu

By: Moshe Feiglin

Published: June 1st, 2012

Unease. Déjà vu from Sharon’s great Expulsion. It began with a column by Hagai Segal, who depicted the insistence of Migron’s residents not to move from their current location as a sort of childish stubbornness. After all, Kedumim was founded after it was moved from its original location and ultimately grew into a thriving community. So how dare those “children” of Migron, who never heard of settler leader Ze’ev “Zambish” Hever, think otherwise?
After reading that column, I already began to feel that we lost: Migron, Ulpana Hill, it doesn’t really matter what exactly will happen on the ground. Just like in Gush Katif, the struggle on the ground is really just make-believe. The real decisions on the fate of the settlements are being made in an entirely different place where the principle has already been determined, or, to be more specific, preserved. Now it is just a question of price. The deal is really being closed between the settler leaders with the same old Sebastia/Kfar Maimon mentality and the prime minister’s advisers.

Read More:

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/moshe-feiglin/ominous-deja-vu/2012/06/01/

Face to Face with Miracle: Moments of Redemption in Our Lives

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
– Albert Einstein

Our sages teach us that when we have left this life and we face the Court on High, we will be called upon to answer for our lives.  Among the questions that we will be asked is, “Did you throughout your lifetime, eagerly await and anticipate the geulah, the ultimate redemption?”

This is a deceptively difficult question.  On the one hand, the answer seems self-evident.  Of course we awaited that glorious time of redemption.  How could we not?  The travails of our lives and the lives of Jews everywhere have kept our thoughts on the coming Messiah, on the coming redemption.  And yet… if we are truly honest, have we, with all of life’s day to day distractions, pressures, and mundane preoccupations really, fully, eagerly awaited and anticipated redemption?

We have been distracted by our lives.  We cannot help it.  As Jews we are aware that we have been created both flesh and soul, of heaven and of the earth.  Our thoughts by virtue of our creation must be focused on both redemption and the world.  As such, the question is impossible for us to answer in the affirmative.

But we will be asked!  So, perhaps, the challenge is not in how we must answer but in how the question is phrased.

Read more:

http://www.ou.org/life/inspiration/face-face-miracle-moments-redemption-in-our-lives-eliyahu-safran/#.T8jHrVI-Fm4

Is Orthodoxy Unhealthy?

About a decade ago, a short time after I arrived in Oak Park, Michigan, I visited a doctor for a checkup. I already knew the drill. He’d come in, examine me, draw blood and adjust my medications based on the results. The examination began, and everything was going well–until the doctor started talking.
“If you don’t lose weight, in ten years you’ll have type-2 diabetes.”
Then the doctor, a secular Jew, added, “You Orthodox eat too much.”
“Why’s he picking on us?” I thought.

Read More:

http://www.ou.org/jewish_action/02/2011/is_orthodoxy_unhealthy/