Free Republic

A Kansas state senator faced criticism from Jewish rabbis this week for describing the aborting of 60 million unborn babies a Holocaust. The Kansas City Star reports state Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, a pro-life Republican from Leavenworth, often brings up the Nazi Holocaust when discussing the abortion issue. He currently is running for a U.S. Congressional district in Kansas. Recently, the Rabbinical Association of Greater Kansas City complained about Fitzgerald using the comparison, claiming he is using the massive slaughter of Jewish people by the Nazis “for political purposes,” according to the report. “Senator, your words abuse the memory of the...

This is a delicate question, as it exposes one of the fundamental differences between the Christian outlook and the Jewish one. As far as I understand the Christian concept, it runs something like this: Ever since the expulsion of the first man and woman from Eden, the world has been “fallen” and all subsequent human beings have been born inherently sinful, guilty from the moment of birth as a result of the first man’s disobedience of G-d’s commandment not to eat of the ‘Etz haDa‘ath Tov vaRa -- usually translated “the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” The...

Let’s say you have a grandfather of whom you are particularly fond, and out of the blue, a stranger says: “Hey, that’s my grandpa!” Then, lest you think this stranger is somehow trying to ingratiate himself with you, he adds: “Everything you thought you knew about grandpa is wrong!” Would that endear this stranger to you? That is the question everyone who believes in the notion of “three Abrahamic Faiths” needs to answer. Proponents of this view believe that -- since Abraham is an important figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (especially the first and last of those three) --...

Humans often seem to require dramatic crises to clarify our problems and direct our attention to what is truly paramount. One of the most striking examples is the story of the Jewish people. Many Christians have just concluded the season of Lent, that time they fast, pray, and give alms as a means of separating themselves from the things of this world and re-orienting their lives toward God. The fundamental idea is to remove the obstacles to worshipping God alone.Jews undergo a similar time of preparation as Passover approaches. Like Lent, Passover is a time for meditation on the one,...

US President Donald Trump's unabashed support for the Jewish state and his public recognition of Jerusalem as its capital have many Israelis electrified. The current American leader's positive attitude toward Israel seems nearly illogical, especially after decades of far more hostile trends. A prominent Israeli rabbi believes the reason for this unprecedented (at least in modern times) shift is that Trump has a big role to play in the building of the Third Temple and the coming of Messiah. Rabbi Yosef Berger is the rabbi in charge of King David's Tomb on Mount Zion, and the son of a widely...

In a story distributed for Good Friday, the Associated Press claims Mary Magdalene was a biblical “Me Too” figure who was “long maligned” by the West.The story, filed from Israel with the headline “Long-maligned Mary Magdalene now seen as stalwart disciple,” asserts that Magdalene was not a reformed prostitute but rather a “strong, independent woman” who supported Jesus.The article also conflates the virtues of Magdalene’s figure with the “Me Too” movement. This latest iteration of U.S. feminism uses the hashtag #MeToo on Twitter and other social media to publicize the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment in the wake of...

There is breaking news out of Jerusalem that descendants of Moses' brother Aaron, called Kohanim, have just conducted a Passover sacrifice at the foot of the Temple Mount, just yards from where the Jewish Temple once stood. The sacrifice is a groundbreaking moment in modern Israeli history and likely the first time since 68 AD that a Passover sacrifice was conducted in such close proximity to the Temple Mount. Religious Jews have been increasingly eager to build the Third Temple and restart sacrifices, but have been prevented from performing sacrifices in the area in years past by Israeli police...

Religious Jewish factions say they are moving ever closer to the realization of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. The latest evidence of this is police authorization, granted on Sunday, for a Passover sacrificial ceremony to be held just tens of meters from where the Second Temple once stood. Religious groups have been holding public Passover sacrifices, in accordance with the biblical outline, for years. But never before have they been permitted to conduct the ceremony so close to the Temple Mount, which the Muslims claim as their own, even as they deny the holy site holds any religious or historical...

The fragment of the ancient Jewish text is from the Genesis Apocryphon.Seventy years after its discovery in the Judean Desert, a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls is going on display for the first time at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum. The Genesis Apocryphon was the first of seven Dead Sea Scrolls making up a collection of Jewish texts dating back to the 1st century B.C. that were found in caves on the West Bank in the 1940s and 1950s. It is the only existing copy of an ancient text that elaborates on the stories of the first book of the Bible....

You may have heard: President Donald Trump replaced his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, with John Bolton. You may have heard because of the mixed reaction to the prospect of Bolton running national security — “mixed” as in apocalyptic among leftists and heaven-sent to many on the right. Look no further than the pro-Israel spectrum for each extremes: “We are horrified by his selection to be national security adviser and believe this move by the president gravely imperils our country’s national standing and the fundamental security of the United States and its allies, including Israel,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president...

Justification is but one word ~ "Love" and in this miracle all others shall be found for even My spirits hang upon this lamp stand(Menorah) of Eternal Truth "God is Love" ~ Elohim Ahavah . . . Matthew 22:37-40 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

GLENCOE, Illinois, March 12, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Quoting Pope Francis, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said “proselytism” is a “sin” that the Catholic Church has “not always avoided.” Cupich said this during a speech on Catholic-Jewish relations at the North Shore Congregation Israel synagogue on January 29, 2018. The synagogue advertises on its website, “We are interfaith. We are LGBTQ.”Cupich discussed the Jewish and Catholic importance of maintaining “tradition” while simultaneously criticizing the Church’s previous “ridiculous” tradition of limiting mixed-religion marriages, invoked the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s “consistent ethic of life” that equates intrinsic evils with societal ills, and warned against...

Readers of the Old Testament are familiar with the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred golden chest carried by the Israelites during their wanderings in the desert and finally placed in the temple built by King Solomon. The 1981 adventure/fantasy film Raiders of the Lost Ark by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas introduced a Hollywood version of the Ark to a much larger global audience outside the Jewish and Christian traditions. That movie ends with the Ark disappearing in a large crate, along with thousands of other similar crates, into a huge U.S. government warehouse. The Ark did indeed disappear,...

A prominent right-wing rabbi was invited to speak at an event organized by a faction within Education Minister Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home party, and promptly outraged most secular Israelis. Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira (pictured) is head of the Ramat Gan Yeshiva, and has often spoken out against homosexuality, insisting that such tendencies can be overcome with proper therapy. At Tuesday's event, Shapira let loose: "We are not homophobes, and we are not phobic. We do not live out of fear, and we are not scared. We are courageous people, we are the Land of Israel's heroes, and we are not scared...

Management gurus tell us, “Personnel is policy.” Southern mothers say it differently. “You can tell everything about someone from his friends.” Historians will look at the men Pope Francis promoted. They will draw interesting conclusions. Meet one of the pope’s closest aides. Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga. He faces appalling charges of financial corruption. They keep getting worse. Maradiaga’s handpicked deputy stands accused of sex abuse. Maradiaga seems to have more in common with Marxist politicians than we thought. In socialist systems from Venezuela to Soviet Russia, the oligarchs might sound like ascetics. But in fact they live like Tsars. The only...

The seal was found ten feet from where the same archaeological team had already found another one belonging to King HezekiahAn archaeological discovery near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount may be proof of the life of the biblical prophet Isaiah, according to the Biblical Archaeology Review. A broken 8th-century BCE clay seal impression – known as a “bulla”– seems to contain an inscription that reads “Belonging to Isaiah,” and a partial spelling of the word “prophet” next to it. As read in the article published by The Algemeiner, Dr. Eilat Mazar, a Hebrew University archeologist whose team discovered the seal in an...

Why do I say that I am an unashamed Palestinian Evangelical? Because there are those who would try to put shame upon me for either of these identities, whether by demeaning the word "Palestinian" or the word "Evangelical." In this article, as with others, I will attempt to examine both parts of our identity as Christian Palestinian Evangelicals. As always, I want to build bridges of understanding between my community and my brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. And spoiler alert – I am also going to invite you to join us at our upcoming Christ at...

https://youtu.be/TqQL--1Rx20

I won’t make any assumptions about how many readers noticed I took a three-month break from column writing. Nevertheless, I want to explain why. I needed the time to finish the first volume of the biggest project of my life as a writer, a commentary on the first five books of the Bible, or what are called the Torah in Hebrew. The commentary is addressed to people of every faith and, especially, to people of no faith. I have believed all my life that the primary crisis in America and the West is the abandonment of Judeo-Christian values, or, one...

I learned today "Oprah" Winfrey was born "Orpah" Winfrey. "Orpah" is a very interesting Biblical name, one up there with Hamen and Pharoah. It means, in this context "neck" and is a specific reference to turning away from G-d. Specifically, Orpah was the sister and sister-in-law of Ruth, married to Chillion. When the two brothers died, their mother-in-law (Naomi) urged the sisters to return to their people and to their "gods." Ruth refused. Orpah gladly recanted her adopted people and G-d, and went back to Moab. There she "gave" herself to so many men she was likened to a threshing...