Jerusalem the fifth day of the festival of Sukkot. Jews from across the world took part in the bi-annual “birkat kohanim” or “priestly blessings,” which take place during Sukkot and Pesach (Passover). The service saw thousands of kohanim – members of the priestly families of Israel – bless the gathered crowd in a show of…
By GIULIO MEOTTI, ARUTZ 7— The fundamental Zionist idea about anti-Semitism was that once a Jewish State was realized, the problem of anti-Semitism in Paris, Berlin and Rome would be solved. Since Jews would have their own homeland, they could no longer be persecuted as religious and national strangers. But this neat packet of reasoning…
By MICHAEL FREUND— On Wednesday morning of last week, just hours before the start of Succot, hundreds of young men in drab green uniforms mulled about at the foot of the Nahal Brigade memorial in Pardes Hanna. A mixture of exhaustion and enthusiasm was evident on their boyish faces as they prepared for the start…
1: An Israeli soldier was abducted and killed by a Palestinian co-worker. The big news of today is word that Sgt. Tomer Hazan, an off duty IDF soldier, was invited into the village of a Palestinian co-worker (fellow employee from a restaurant in Bat Yam). Once in the village the young Israeli was abducted and…
By JUDI RUDOREN, NY TIMES— Small groups of Jews are increasingly ascending the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, a sacred site controlled for centuries by Muslims, who see the visits as a provocation that could undermine the fragile peace talks started this summer. For decades the Israelis drawn to the site were mainly a…
By CAROLINE GLICK, JPOST– Did US President Barack Obama score a great victory for the United States by concluding a deal with Russia on Syria’s chemical weapons or has he caused irreparable harm to the US’s reputation and international position? By what standard can we judge his actions when the results will only be known…
By RON JAGER— As a longtime resident of Shaare Tiqva for the past 24 years, Shabbat Chol Hamoed began as a non-eventful day in which the reading of Aicha is for me always a special event. Towards late afternoon on Shabbat, when the ominous gray clouds above began to release winters first rainfall, the entrance…
By GIULIO MEOTI, INN — Two narratives are at war on the same, slim and holy piece of land. Forget about coexistence. Israel’s problems stem from a guilt complex. The Jewish people are, I believe, the chosen people, but are subjected to brainwashing by a small group of guilt-ridden personalities, including most of the politicians…
“Since 1948 Arab leaders…have used the Palestine people for selfish political purposes. This is…criminal.”—King Hussein of Jordan, 1960
By JTA and AARON KALMAN, TIMES OF ISRAEL— Pope Francis praised Jews for keeping their faith despite the Holocaust and other “terrible trials” throughout history, and reaffirmed Judaism as the “holy root” of Christianity. Francis made the statements in an unprecedented open letter to Eugenio Scalfari, a prominent Italian atheist and founding editor of the…