Free Republic

They call it the “Kaduri Revival,” and reports over recent months have confirmed the teachings of one of Israel’s most venerated rabbi are leading Jews time and again to accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah. And face persecution. Baptist preacher and radio host Carl Gallups says the threats facing Messianic Jews now in Israel is “reminiscent of what we read about in the New Testament – in the early days of the church.” There, he said, Jews who followed Jesus Christ were persecuted. And today, they “are facing the same hardships and persecution the early church faced,” he said. “Gallups...

The Riminov Rebbe visited the Florida communities made up of South American immigrants from France, gave an unequivocal command to the Jews to leave and go to Israel, saying that there will be a civil war in the US. BeHadrei Haredim reported that the Rebbe said: “Leave while you still can. The situation will get worse and it will be difficult to move from state to state. After World War II the survivors came to the great men of Israel and Hasidic leaders and asked why they had not ordered the Jews of Europe to leave and immigrate to Israel...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) celebrated Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day by denying its scope, Palestinian Media Watch revealed Sunday - claiming that instead of six million Jews killed by the Nazis, there were only 1-2 million. "Estimates regarding the number of Holocaust victims differ," an Op/Ed penned by columnist Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul for the official PA Al-Hayat Al-Jadida claimed. "The supporters of the Zionist movement have exaggerated the number of victims, claiming that it amounts to 6 million, whereas others, unbiased researchers, have estimated that there were between one and two million Jewish victims." "Regardless of the number, the bottom line...

IRAN BILL BATTLE: "Congress’s Role in Iran Nuclear Deal Shows Limits of Obama’s Power" by Peter Baker: "In his assertions of executive power to advance his agenda in an era of gridlock, President Obama has been largely on offense. But his latest battle with Congress not only left him on defense, it actually broke the gridlock. Against him. Mr. Obama’s abrupt decision to sign a compromise version of legislation on Iran that he had previously vowed to veto was a bruising retreat in his larger campaign to act without Congress’s getting in his way. In this case, partisanship gave way...

The storm of Islam” is coming, already with the persecution of Christians in the Middle East but it’s “going to get worse” with “persecution” in America because resident Barack Obama is “very sympathetic to Islam,” said evangelical pastor Franklin Graham... Muslims are influencing U.S. foreign policy as was evident in the way the White House “snubbed” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “[I]t’s because of the influence of Islam,” he said. “They hate Israel and they hate Christians, and so the storm is coming.” ... this isn’t just radical Islam – this is Islam. They’ve been persecuting Christians, minorities for centuries....

I love Passover. It's one of my very favorite Jewish holidays. For more than 3 score years I have enjoyed the richness of the rituals, the exotic and tasty food, and the story about a struggle for freedom, some would say a never-ending struggle, and I won't argue the point. The ceremonial Haggadah, the book that is the guide through each step of the Seder, is spiritually uplifting, and I have learned something new every year. This year my attention was caught by the dictate to "lean to the left" while dining. While there are both religious and medical reasons...

For those of us in the business of talking about political trends for a living, the Pew Research Center’s latest “deep dive” into the politics of demography is a must-bookmark post.Pew looked into the polling data from 1992 to today and found that the Republican Party is in no better shape than it was 23 years ago. Overall, the number of respondents who identify as Republican is down 5 points since 1992 while Democratic identification is virtually static. When those who lean one way or the other are included, 39 percent self-identify as Republicans and 48 percent as Democratic...

A longstanding alliance between Jewish voters and the Democratic Party no longer appears very durable. The rift — aggravated by a nuclear deal with Iran and sour relations between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — will likely have political implications in the 2016 elections, The Wall Street Journal reports. "At this moment in time, many American Jews who have consistently voted Democratic are beginning to waver in that support, because they've felt the bedrock relationship between Israel and this administration has been severely shaken," Rabbi Howard Buechler, of the Dix Hills Jewish Center in New York,...

“The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out.”So wrote Benjamin Netanyahu in a Facebook post on March 17, the day of Israel’s elections. Since then the words have been a cause célèbre among critics of Israel—and not least, American Jewish liberals.The Jerusalem Post reports that a “yawning divide has opened between liberal US Jews and the right-wing Jewish Israeli majority that reelected…Netanyahu,” and that: More than any of the prime minister’s other statements—which included skepticism about the feasibility of the two-state solution and complaints about foreign...

Communities in New Mexico and southern Colorado have found irrefutable evidence to say they are descended from Jews. What next? The crypto-Jews of Spain have fascinated Jews for decades. But it was not always fascination – it was once more about the frustration, even resignation, that hundreds of thousands of Jews had been stolen in martyrdom or in forced conversions to Catholicism. In 1492, consolidating their gains following the conquest of Granada, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella enforced the Spanish Inquisition to offer Jews under their rule three infamous options: leave, convert or die. For those who converted, it was...

Brussels’ metropolitan area is a quarter Muslim. The number of Muslims in Brussels—where roughly half of the number of Muslims in Belgium currently live—has reached 300,000, which means that the self-styled “Capital of Europe” is now one of the most Islamic cities in Europe.In 2013, Muslims made up approximately 26% of the population of metropolitan Brussels, followed by Rotterdam (25%), Amsterdam (24%), Antwerp (17%), The Hague (14%) and Utrecht (13%), according to a panoply of research. That means Jewish kindergartens are in trouble in a city with a growing dominance by the Master Faith. A Belgian insurance company has refused...

Liberals believe that social engineering can bring about universal success; conservatives want to foster individual responsibility and initiative. For liberals, the failure of an individual is a failure of society; for conservatives, individuals should be allowed to succeed or fail on their own merits. There are degrees, of course; most conservatives eschew Social Darwinism or Ayn Rand’s egotism, and most liberals do not believe in the strict application of the Communist maxim, “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” But that is the bright line that divides us conservatives from the liberals.Why are (most)...

When a 73-year-old man opened fire on two Jewish facilities in a Kansas City suburb last year, killing three people, police called the attack a hate crime.

As Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex) announced last week that he was running for president, his Virginia audience cheered. He dropped applause line after applause line on some 10,000 students at Liberty University, which bills itself as the largest Christian university in the world. Cruz riffed, unimaginatively, on an “imagine” theme, asking the young audience to “imagine a president” who would repeal Obamacare and perform other feats. There was applause throughout. But one line prompted the students to erupt into a roaring, 30-second, standing ovation: “Instead of a president who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with...

Members of Turkey’s Jewish community attend the reopening ceremony of the Great Synagogue in Edirne on March 26 after a five-year government restoration project. REUTERS Photo Just a week before Passover, Turkish Jews woke up to a morning full of excitement and hope. They got on the buses waiting to take them to Edirne, to the city that their families once had to leave following the Thrace pogroms in 1934. It was the reopening day of the Great Synagogue, which had been left in ruins for decades. “I was the last rabbi that had served in the synagogue,” said David...

I grew up Jewish.  When I was growing up, being Jewish meant you supported Israel.  I lived through the 1967 war (I was a toddler), the 1973 war (I was in third grade), and the “troubles” since then.  Israel always seemed invincible. As I got older, things became more complicated.  Today I read about Jews of my generation who question their loyalty to Israel, who, in fact, disclaim Israel as their birthright, as if it were something that could be disclaimed. Certainly, the images of dead Palestinian children can make anyone with a shred of human decency’s heart break.  I...

"I don't understand how Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second and support Israel along the line of just following their president," vented Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Boston Herald Radio last week. It was a small controversy in the grand scheme of things, easily overlooked during a week when: a German pilot turned a routine flight into a murder-suicide mission, Ted Cruz drove the media batty by announcing he will run for president as Ted Cruz, an Army sergeant and Taliban captive the White House touted as a hero was charged with desertion, and America...

American Jews are anything but monolithic in opinion. The first great conservative leader of postwar America was also the only major party nominee of Jewish descent: Barry Goldwater. During the Cold War, individual American Jews made enormous contributions to the cause of liberty. Admiral Rickover almost single-handedly created the most effective part of our Triad Defense System: nuclear submarines. Morris Childs, the highest-ranking FBI agent in the Communist Party USA, provided our government with priceless intelligence collected within the Kremlin’s inner sanctum, knowing that if caught he would be tortured to death. AT contributor Herb Meyer, when in the Reagan...

American Jews on the left were beside themselves last week. Israel's Jews did something that utterly infuriated these American Jews: Israel's Jews overwhelmingly voted for a man of the right (or for other right-of-center parties). And not just any right-winger, but the only leader in the Western world to publicly differ from their hero, President Barack Obama. To understand their fury, one must first understand that no one is more certain of their moral superiority than the left. This is true the world over, and among Jews it is particularly so. For the leaders of the American Jewish religious left...

On the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress the level of hysteria among American Jewish liberals has reached cascading proportions. From full-page advertisements in The New York Times to anguished columns in The Times of Israel expressions of outrage pour forth. They are furious lest an Israeli prime minister implicate them in such a heinous deed as warning against the imminent surrender of the Obama administration to Iranian nuclear ambitions. All the usual suspects on the Jewish left chimed in. J Street released a petition with 20,000 signees protesting: “I’m a Jew. Bibi does NOT speak for...