Wasted opportunity

By MICHAEL FREUND, JPOST— What a wasted opportunity. Sunday’s prayer rally, which brought hundreds of thousands of haredim into the streets of Jerusalem, had all the makings of an historic event. To begin with, it was one of the largest Jewish prayer services to take place since the Second Temple once stood nearly two millennia…

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How the Ukranian Crisis impacts the Middle East

By HERB KEINON, JPOST— When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu meets US President Barack Obama in the White House on Monday, he will be meeting a president preoccupied with the Ukrainian crisis, a crisis that some have called the most dangerous situation in Europe since the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Israel has no dog in…

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Crimean synagogues defaced with Swastikas

By ISRAEL HAYOM— As the world follows events in the Crimean peninsula, the local Jewish community has its own reason to worry — on Friday, vandals sprayed swastikas and graffiti reading “Death to the Jews” on a synagogue in Simferopol. “There is no doubt that it was important to anti-Semites to commit this crime,” said…

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Spot Report: Passover

Think on This: “In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’” 1 Corinthians 11:25 Pray on This: Heavenly Father, thank you for delivering us from literal and spiritual slavery. Thank you for the…

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Gaza fisherman hooks ancient Greek statue

By NIC ROBERTSON and TALAL ABU RAHMA, CNN— When Jwdat Abu Ghrb spotted a dark shape last summer in the waters off Gaza, where he was diving for fish, he initially thought it was a corpse. “I was afraid,” he told CNN. “I put on my goggles, dove underneath and still couldn’t tell what it…

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Arab League to discuss ‘Israel attacks’ on Al-Aqsa

By ELAD BENARI, ARUTZ 7— The Arab League will hold an emergency session on Wednesday in the wake of the Knesset discussion on the Temple Mount, the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency reports. According to the report, the Palestinian Authority (PA) submitted a request to the Arab League to hold the session, in order to discuss…

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Stormy debate: Knesset hosts first ever parley on Temple Mount sovereignty in plenum

By LAHAV HARKOV and DANIEL EISENBUD, JPOST— The State of Israel is pointless without the Temple Mount, MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud Beytenu) said at the first-ever plenum discussion of Israeli sovereignty over the holy site on Tuesday. The debate came on the same day as the latest in a series of rioting on the Mount…

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Ignorance or Enlightenment

BY VICTOR SHARPE The Arab and Muslim total war against Israel appears to be a war without end. This is why it is not accurate to describe it as the Arab-Israel conflict, nor is it correct to label it the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It is, in reality, the Islam-Israel conflict and, like the seventeenth century Thirty…

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‘Israel, Protect Us!’

By GIL RONEN, ARUTZ7 — Ukraine’s Jews report attacks, threats accompanying current rebellion are getting worse, ask for Israeli security personnel.—  In the face of increasing hostility toward Jews throughout the Ukraine, the Director of the Federation of Jewish Organizations in Europe, Rabbi Menahem Margolin, has asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe…

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The politics of the Palestinian right of return

By ASAF ROMIROWSKY and ALEXANDER JOFFE, FORBES— US-backed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are entering a critical period. With reports suggesting Israeli acceptance of the 1967 lines and land swaps, what about Palestinian concessions? Two issues are paramount: the ‘right of return’ and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinian Authority President…

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Ukraine’s Chief Rabbi dishes on politics

BY YOCHONON DONN— Despite contrary media reports, Ukrainian Jews remain relatively safe even as the country’s government — still reeling from the stunning downfall of its president, Viktor Yanukovych — begins to rebuild, the country’s chief rabbi told Hamodia, the Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry in an interview Sunday. Returning from a Manhattan press conference…

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Hamas: Recognizing Israel is a ‘Death Sentence’ to the PA

By DALIT HALEVI and ELAD BENARI, ARUTZ7-— Lawmakers from Hamas on Sunday warned Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas against recognizing Israel as part of the ongoing peace process. The lawmakers said that recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would be a “death sentence” against the PA. Ibrahim Dahbour, one of Hamas’s representative in…

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Ukraine’s Jews ponder their future

By SAM SOKOL, JPOST— Despite the lack of a defined threat against them, representatives of Ukrainian Jewry indicated that they feel a general sense of unease as the pro – tests that shook Kiev for the last three months wind down. There is currently “no information of Jews being targeted, but there is a danger…

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Armed terrorists parade in West Bank

BY LEA SPEYER, BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS— Masked men wearing military uniform paraded down the streets of the West Bank city of Abu Dis this weekend, marking the 45th anniversary of the creation of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). The DFLP is one of the largest terror organizations associated with the PLO.…

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