Free Republic

JERUSALEM — A small but growing movement by Jewish activists demanding the right to pray at the site of their destroyed temple, in the heart of this disputed capital’s Old City, is creating a potentially explosive clash with the Muslim world, which considers the spot holy and bans Jews from public worship there. Each week, hundreds of Jews ascend the creaky wooden ramp built above the Western Wall and enter what is often called the most contested real estate on Earth. Many then embark upon a game of hide-and-seek with their police escorts — whispering forbidden prayers while pretending to...

Vatican City, December 02, 2013 (Zenit.org) Staff | 142 hits Pope Francis met this morning with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, increasing hopes for a future visit by the Pontiff to the Holy Land. The two leaders discussed the “complex political and social situation in the Middle East.” A Vatican press release stated that both the Holy Father and the Prime Minister expressed their hope that a lasting peaceful solution between Israel and Palestine.Various questions were considered regarding the "relations between the State Authorities and the local Catholic communities, as well as between the State of Israel and the...

Many Jews are so scarred (rightfully so!) by stories of horrors perpetrated upon us in the name of Christianity, that those stories become a defining part of their reality. Christian hatred of Jews is a given, as real and permanent as gravity. They cannot imagine a world without it. If you are one of those, please stop reading. The rest is not for you. If you have room in your world view for change in the way some people relate to us, and we to them, you might be interested in learning about salient points of the major document (officially...

An audio class on the origins and practices of Chanukah in Jewish teachings, with application to our modern culture.

Still today there is controversy as to the “real meaning of Chanukah.” So let’s keep it simple by declaring that Chanukah is about a group of Hebrew fighters who were mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore. These were the Maccabees, hammers for justice and freedom in Judea/Israel some 2,000 years ago. The Maccabees took to heart the Torah dictate that the Hebrews were to be “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” So, outnumbered and out-gunned, they used guerilla tactics to rise up against their Hellenistic oppressors who had defiled the land, the people...

The One true God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. "I am the Lord, and there is no other, apart from me there is no God." (Isaiah 45:5) In other words, the "Jewish God" is the only God that exists. All the other "gods" among the various religions do not actually rule the universe. In fact, they exist only in the minds of those who seek to obey them and earn their favor. Jewish people know all about seeking to obey God. Moses was given the Law so that God's people would know what God expected of them....

The Pope Francis effect has even spread to Forward’s 50 top American Jews list for this year. Forward magazine, the historic voice of American liberal Judaism, decided to add Bergoglio to the 2013 edition of Forward 50, its annual list of top Jewish-American figures. The reason for this “endorsement” is party due to an umpteenth attempt to launch an attack on Francis’ predecessor, Benedict XVI. As he is not Jewish, Francis has been added to the magazine’s “PLUS” list. The accompanying note included in the Pope’s profile explains the reason why he was chosen: “After eight months as head of...

From the AP: Ultra-traditionalist Catholics have openly challenged Pope Francis by disrupting one of his favorite events, a ceremony that he and Jewish leaders led in the Metropolitan Cathedral each year to promote religious harmony on the anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust.The annual ceremony brings together Catholics, Jews and Protestants to mark Kristallnacht, the Nazi-led mob violence in 1938 when about 1,000 Jewish synagogues were burned and thousands of Jews were forced into concentration camps, launching the genocide that killed 6 million Jews.A small group disrupted Tuesday night’s ceremony by shouting the rosary and the “Our Father”...

My Love for you is amazing! So allow me to love you by letting go of "all" the woes that encumber you for I AM your Peace and Joy. "Rise up oh well for the voice of many waters is calling to you for his glory" !!! Galatians 5:1 It is "for" freedom that Christ "has" set us FREE ! "Stand firm then" and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. ! Psalm 34 [A Psalm] of David; when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him out, and he went away. 1...

Question: Can you “stand your ground” according to halacha as George Zimmerman allegedly did when he killed Trayvon Martin? Answer: According to halacha, if someone is running after you to kill you, that person is classified as a rodef and you may kill him. However, this is only the case if you have no other option. If wounding the rodef is sufficient to stop him, you may not kill him. If you do nonetheless, you are a murderer (see Rambam, Hilchot Rotzei’ach 1:6,7) The Mishnah L’Melech, however, takes a different position (see his comments to the Rambam’s Hilchot Chovail U’Mazik...

Introduction: Although the "New Testament" contains the same twenty-seven books for almost all Christians, there are some major and important differences between the "Hebrew Bible" (HB) used by Jews and different versions of the "Old Testament" (OT) used by various Christian churches and denominations: The foundational texts are different: Jewish Bibles are based on the HB; the OT section in Christian Bibles is arranged according to the order of books in the "Septuagint" (LXX), the ancient Greek version of the Jewish scriptures;however, the translations of individual OT books in Christian Bibles are now usually based on the texts of the...

Christians can learn from Jews. We can learn how to thrive in the secular world that no longer regards faith as central. So argues Rabbi Jonathan Sacks at the 2013 Erasmus Lecture. Speaking to more than five hundred people on the evening of Monday, October 21st at the Union League Club in New York, Sacks outlined a vision in which religious communities—Jewish and Christian—can function as creative minorities.

Thirty-three miles into the Arctic Circle, in the village of Kotzebue, Alaska, where more than 70 percent of the people are Eskimo, the local elementary school had guests one day: two Chabad shluchim (emissaries) from Anchorage, some 550 miles away. The children showed them Eskimo dances from the Inupiat tribe. The shluchim danced chasidic dances. Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz asked, “Did any of you ever meet a Jew?” One girl raised her hand, yes, and she pointed to her mother, the fifth grade teacher. The mother had intermarried with a native man. The mother asked if the visitors could tell something...

On July 10, 1941, half the residents of Jedwabne, a Polish village 85 miles northeast of Warsaw, murdered the other half. The mob, led by the mayor, were Catholics; their 1,600 victims were Jewish, slaughtered over several nightmarish hours with bats, knives, rifles and other improvised weapons. Those who survived the massacre were then rounded up in a barn donated by a local farmer, which was then set ablaze. A plaque erected at the site blamed Nazis for the massacre, but, in fact, Nazis had only authorized it. Locals walked by the plaque for half a century, knowing the truth,...

The Pope’s personal warmth continues to amaze Jewish visitors “Unbelievable, extraordinary, electrifying!  I have never seen a Pope with such warmth” said Rabbi Marvin Hier immediately following a Papal  Audience of 62 members and friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Thursday, October 24. “Pope Francis stayed around after his remarks.  He wouldn’t leave.  He sat in our midst and spoke privately to every single individual. This is his great strength: when he talks to an individual nothing else exists in the world.” Rabbi Marvin Hier is Dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (named after the Austrian Holocaust survivor...

Pope Francis reached out to an American Jewish leader, the son of two Holocaust survivors, in a recent e-mail exchange. The pope contacted Menachem Rosensaft, an American professor specializing in the law of genocide and war crimes trials at Columbia and Cornell, after Rosensaft sent a sermon he delivered in September on believing in God after the Holocaust, along with a personal note, to the Vatican. Vatican officials confirmed the e-mail. In the short note, Francis alluded to Rosensaft’s reflection on the possibility of God’s presence during the Holocaust, which the professor believes gave his father strength to pray even...

A new book contends that the Church was the ‘only organizing force’ committed to saving Jews in Rome during World War II.VATICAN CITY — The efforts of the Catholic Church were undoubtedly decisive in the escape of most of Rome’s Jews during World War II, according to a Jewish historian and columnist of L’Osservatore Romano. In a recently published book, Portico d’Ottavia, 13, Anna Foa describes the only raid against Jews committed by Nazis in Rome. The book is named for the address of the Oct. 16, 1943, raid. Foa said Oct. 10 that “Nazis entered in the courtyard and...

Following yesterday’s thwarted funeral, some reaction in Italy: The head of Rome’s Jewish community praised protesters who blocked the funeral of a convicted Nazi war criminal as Italy marked on Wednesday the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from the Rome ghetto.Erich Priebke’s final resting place is now unclear after the protesters forced a suspension of his funeral on Tuesday in the Italian town of Albano Laziale. His body is lying at a military airport near Rome pending a decision from the authorities.The former German SS officer died aged 100 last week in Rome, where he had been serving...

Pope Francis met on October 11 with representatives of the Jewish community in Rome, led by Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, to mark the 70th anniversary of the date when Nazis rounded up the Jews of Rome for deportation to Auschwitz. Recalling the genocidal campaign, the Pope said: “We remember and pray for the many innocent victims of human barbarism, and for their families. It will also be an occasion to recall the importance of remaining vigilant in order that we do not regress, under any pretext, to any forms of intolerance and anti-Semitism, in Rome and in the rest...

In the hours following Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's death Monday, many shared stories of their own encounters with the renowned rabbi, whose influence touched almost every aspect of contemporary Jewish life. Among those who had a story to tell was Elishai, a teacher who works with immigrant youth. Elishai heard the story from an older man he happened to meet on a bus. The other man wore clothing that clearly identified him as a religious Jew, including a long coat and black hat, and he engaged Elishai in Torah learning during the ride. As the bus approached their destination, the older...