By EARL COX— The White House has announced that Mr. Obama plans to visit Israel in late March. Everyone is wondering about the “real” reason for Obama’s visit because he has been lukewarm to cool toward Israel for a long time. According to some conjecture, Mr. Obama’s stopover is intended for working sessions on the…
By MICHAEL FREUND, JPOST— Last week, the small and unassuming mikve (ritual bath) in Hod HaSharon witnessed the unfolding of a remarkable scene in the annals of Jewish history. One by one, six young Chinese men, all descendants of the Jewish community of Kaifeng, China, immersed themselves in the warm and purifying waters before a…
By ISRAEL TODAY— Palestinian political and religious figures over the weekend warned US President Barack Obama that he should probably avoid ascending Jerusalem’s Temple Mount during his upcoming visit to Israel, but provided a list of instructions should he go ahead with a stop at the contentious holy site. The White House has not said…
By YOEL MELTZER, YNET— As the bloodshed in Syria continues with no end in sight, more and more eyes are beginning to focus on Syria’s formerly stable southern neighbor, Jordan. After nearly two years of low level protests, the last few months have witnessed not only an upsurge in the amount of protests but also…
By SHOSHANA BRYEN, AMERICAN THINKER— Stipulating that foreign aid can be an important part of American foreign policy, and further that trade is an important component of U.S. foreign policy; Secretary of State John Kerry made two really important mistakes in his maiden speech, delivered to a fawning audience of American university students. The first…
By DR. REUVEN BERKO, ISRAEL HAYOM— An Al-Jazeera journalist asked Palestinian Prisoner Affairs Minister Issa Karaka if the Palestinians intend to kidnap IDF soldiers to free Palestinian prisoners serving time in Israeli jails. Karaka skillfully bypassed the tendentious question. Actually, Israeli defense sources have reported on some 18 attempts to kidnap soldiers as of late.…
By BARRY RUBIN, GLORIA— Here’s the perfect parable for understanding not just the contemporary Middle East but the wider world today. So far, it’s only being covered in the Finnish media which, I assume, means nobody outside that country knows about it. Two unarmed Finnish soldiers assigned to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)…
“Another Holocaust would have happened in the history of the Jewish people. Never again, never again. Tell so your friends, tell anybody you will meet, we shall defend our people with all the means at our disposal. We shall not allow any enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction turned against us.”—Israeli Prime Minister Menachem…
Torah: Exodus 30:11–34:35, “Ki Tisa” (When you take …) Haftorah: I Kings 18:1–39 New Testament: II Corinthians 3:1–18 Gospel: Matthew 26:17–30, “Bar reshon la hag” (On the 1st day of the feast…)
By ISRAEL TODAY— We have already reported several times on Benjamin Netanyahu’s revival of the Prime Minister’s Bible Study group in Israel. Now the Knesset is getting in on the trend with the establishment of its own weekly sessions of scriptural enlightenment. The initiative came from one of the new Knesset parties, the centrist Yesh…