Free Republic

Diego Tafiah, a convert from Colombia who now is a Haredi soldier, in the IDF, met his Catholic mother and sister for the first time in six years Wednesday night after they were flown in to Israel for a ceremony marking the end of his combat unit’s basic training course.

The day before her wedding, Florence Ofer, a blonde 27-year-old accountant, strolled out of the Shabbat service at Benei Tikva, a synagogue in Buenos Aires, praising the shul’s rabbi, Abraham Skorka, who was going to conduct her wedding. Though she isn’t a member of the congregation, Ofer is among Jews from across the Argentine capital drawn to celebrate weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other special occasions at Benei Tikva. “We chose to get married here because of him,” she told me. “He speaks from the heart.” Her father Leti, a local doctor, piped up to add that the...

Mark Rouk, a 16-year-old Christian Arab boy from east Jerusalem who suffers from a chronic illness, believes the only way for him to heal is with a blessing from the pope Chief Rabbi David Lau says he will invite Rouk to pope's reception ceremony. Photo credit: Courtesy of the Rouk family For one 16-year-old boy from east Jerusalem, Pope Francis' upcoming visit to Israel will be a dream come true. Mark Rouk, a Christian Arab youth who suffers from a chronic illness, approached Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau and asked him to help him meet the pope. In addition to...

October 16, 1943, is engrained in Italy's history as a day of clear and direct anti-semitism. It's the day when Nazi soldiers evacuated Jews from the Roman Ghetto. Now, new details show Pius XII helped Jews in Rome, before the events of the so-called "Black Saturday.” Even before the arrival of the Nazis to the Eternal City. DOMINIEK OVERSTEYNS  L'Opera della Chiesa "By July 9th, a monastery was already taking in Jews, and on July 20, a letter from the Diocese arrived. It read: 'This is Papal territory, please do not enter.' And this happened seven weeks before the German...

The dramatic recent collapse of the Arab-Israeli peace talks and the ongoing political turmoil involving the Temple Mount have again focused world attention on the centuries-old struggle for that sacred site. Since antiquity, the roughly 37 acres of the Temple Mount and its immediate surroundings have frequently been the focus of interreligious strife. The destruction of the Jewish temple by the Romans in A.D. 70 was a devastating event in the history of Judaism. It served as a transforming catalyst in both the origins of Christianity and the transition of Israelite religion from a priestly sacrifice-centered system to the legalistic...

UNBELIEVABLE Class on the Scroll of Ruth and its Jewish commentaries-- from the simple meaning to the poetic, to the mystical/esoteric. Did you know that Arpah (Ruth's sister) was the mother of Goliath? That Ruth was a reincarnation of the daughter of Lot (of Sodom fame or infamy) Learn about the incredible tapestry of this scroll. Don't fear, non-Hebrew speakers, the rabbi translates everything and only the actual verse is read in Hebrew. The class is given in English...

Father Giuseppe Girotti (1905-45), a Dominican exegete who was killed at the Dachau concentration camp because of his efforts to assist Jews, was beatified in Alba, Italy, according to the new English edition of L’Osservatore Romano. The April 26 beatification, conducted by Cardinal Severino Poletto, the retired archbishop of Turin, was overshadowed by the canonization of Saints John XXIII and John Paul II the following morning.

An Israeli lawmaker claims that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken with Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef about the possibility of ceding the Tomb of David— located in an old church building that is also revered by Christians as the site of the Last Supper—to the Vatican. The report—which has not been confirmed by the Israeli government—comes after earlier rumors that the government was engaged in secret negotiations with the Vatican about future control of the site.

Priest Seeks to Minister to Children of Migrant WorkersWith a formal Pontifical Mass the Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem inaugurated the first Catholic pastoral center for migrant workers in Israel on April 26 in Tel Aviv. Those present included the Apostolic Nuncio in Israel, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, and the Ambassador of the Philippines in Israel. Jesuit Father David Neuhaus, co-ordinator of the Patriarchate for migrants' pastoral care and initiator of the project, thanked charities including Aid to the Church in Need for support. "It would have been impossible to found the 'Our Lady of Valor' Pastoral Center without the...

"Draw Me; We Will Run After You" In the Song of Songs (1:4), there is a verse, "Draw me, we will run after you; the king has brought me into his chambers." The Kabbalists see these three phrases as references to the three stages of the departure from Egypt. "Draw me" is the Exodus. "We will run after you" is the counting of the omer. "The king has brought me into his chambers" is the giving of the Torah. "Draw me" is passive -- it refers to the Israelites being taken out by G-d. Also it is singular. Whereas "We...

Israeli police arrested 16 Palestinians at one of Jerusalem's most revered and politically sensitive holy sites on Sunday as they dispersed protesters opposed to any Jewish attempts to pray there. A police spokesman said officers used stun grenades to disperse dozens of rioters, who threw rocks and firecrackers at them at the site revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's walled Old City. Two officers were slightly injured and treated at the scene in the brief clash, the spokesman added. Five Palestinians were also slightly hurt, a Muslim clergyman said. Police...

Do you see my children my day has already come but I have breathed my Resurrection Breath of Life in you now for others to receive and so it is as you share Me( JESUS) " The Spring Of Life " that these waters are imparted by the Breath of My Spirit in you ! So "BE" My LIVING WATERS and nourish the seeds of those I have placed in your lives for you are the Dippers and Cups I have ~ RELEASED ~ ~ ~ to those that have come to Jacob's Well for truly My Glory is eternally...

With Passover here, it is a propitious time to address the central issue of the holiday: the Exodus. Specifically, did the Exodus happen? My friend Rabbi David Wolpe announced some years ago that it didn’t matter whether the Exodus occurred. In his words, writing three years later: “Three years ago on Passover, I explained to my congregation that according to archeologists, there was no reliable evidence that the Exodus took place — and that it almost certainly did not take place the way the Bible recounts it. Finally, I emphasized: It didn’t matter.” “The Torah,” he continued, “is not a...

An aerial view of the Old City of Jerusalem. An organization of Israeli temples is preparing priests for the the reconstruction of the city's historic third temple. On April 10, at 5 p.m., hundreds of Jews will gather at the Maimonides rabbinical institution plaza in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood in Jerusalem and start learning the Jewish laws of Passover. Rabbis and experts, including Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, the head of the Temple Institute in the Old City of Jerusalem, the leading body preparing for the establishment of the third temple, will teach the audience the laws of the Passover sacrifice. Alongside Ariel, the ritual...

Five Jewish Israelis were arrested Monday after allegedly attempting to sacrifice a goat at the Temple Mount in honor of the Passover holiday. The suspects were brought in to a nearby police station for further questioning. The goat was transferred to representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Ynet reported. In the bible,a special ritual sacrifice is commanded on the Passover holiday and the custom was practiced by Jews during the First and Second Temple periods when their central shrine stood on the same site that today houses the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock . However, most rabbinic authorities...

PONTIUS PILATEHis name provides two valuable clues to his background and ancestry. The family name, Pontius was that of a prominent clan among the Samnites, hill cousins of the Latin Romans. They had almost conquered Rome in several fierce wars. The Pontii were of noble blood, but when Rome finally absorbed the Samnites, their aristocracy was demoted to the Roman equestrian or middle-class order, rather than the senatorial order. It is Pilate’s personal name Pilatus that proves almost conclusively that he was of Samnite origin. Pilatus means “armed-with-a-javelin”. The pilum or javelin was six feet long, half wooden and...

“Toras Hashem temimah” – The Torah, in all aspects, is perfect and complete. It need not bend or comply with any other system. In fact, since the Torah is the blueprint according to which the universe was created, other systems should be judged by their agreement with the Torah. In recent years, however, Rabbi Moshe Meiselman notes that many unqualified authors have taken the liberty of challenging the classic mesorah of the Torah to accommodate the views of modern science. The authors are accused of relegating Chazal to a back seat in relation to modern-day scientific theories. Many of these...

My substance is eternal yet Holy in that its "consistency" changes everything it touches into eternal life that receives my promise and it is then the blessings of Melchizedek are released and "all" matter is then "transfigured" into Me ( Jesus) Acts 17:28-29 28 For in Him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your [own] poets have said, For we are also His offspring. 29 Since then we are God’s offspring, we ought not to suppose that Deity (the Godhead) is like gold or silver or stone, [of the nature of] a representation by...

Pope John XXIII is pictured in this undated photo. (CNS photo) The press called him a caretaker pope. Elected on October 28, 1958, at the age of 77, he was expected to warm the Chair of Peter for a few years without making any great waves. They could hardly have been more wrong. The people called him Good Pope John because of his genial nature, and few popes have been more loved. His successor, Paul VI, hailed him as “an incomparable pope.” But the Jews had a special relationship with John XXIII, and it is their love for him...

As my friend Daniel Pipes wrote some days ago at National Review, the Middle East Forum is debating whether one can speak meaningfully of “moderate Muslims,” with Dr. Pipes defending the affirmative and Raymond Ibrahim the negative thesis. I respect both Pipes and Ibrahim, but I am not satisfied with the content of the debate. The first issue to be settled is what moderation might mean in the case of adherence to a religion, which is after all not a list of positions but an existential stance towards life. One can speak of a moderate Communist (e.g. Gorbachev) or moderate...