Free Republic

Full title: The Philosophers and the Jews: Black Eggs and White Cheese The Secret of Jewish Resilience. The Inner Story of The Three Weeks Note: only 40 min long and the rabbi translates everything, very little 'yeshivish' (annoying mix of English, Hebrew, and Yiddish) A beautiful explanation on polar opposite sides of the Jewish calendar-- the 3 weeks between the 17th of the Jewsish month of Tammuz (the day the walls of Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar) and the 9th of Av (the day of the destruction of both Holy Temples) AND the 3 weeks between Rosh Hashana and [the day...

Rows of candles were set up last week at the home of Rabbi Zalman and Toba Grossbaum, co-directors of Chabad of Livingston, N.J., so community members and family could welcome in Shabbat and pray for the people of Israel.With the Sabbath approaching, Israel Defense Force troops are on the ground in Gaza, with Jews everywhere praying for their safety. Throughout the world came calls for prayer and good deeds on behalf of the Israeli soldiers, and all people threatened by ongoing missile attacks, with special emphasis on Jewish women and girls lighting Shabbat candles, and for families to join with...

I read at Il Giornale today that the prayer read by the Imam in the Vatican Gardens was indeed from the Sura 2, wherein Allah is asked to crush infidels (that’s us) and let Islam triumph over the whole world (that’s us, too). Vatican Radio, at the time, tried to give this an allegorical spin. It didn’t work very well. At a certain point it seems they also tried to edit out the troubling passage. Suffice to say that an Imam sang: “grant us victory over the heathen/disbelieving/infidel” (Sura 2: 286) in the Vatican Gardens, in front of the Pope,...

Jewish communities around the world are not letting terrorist attacks from Hamas deter them from relocating to Israel. This week, hundreds of French Jews arrived in Israel to settle in the towns of Ashdod and Ashkelon, while incidents of anti-Semitism continue to rise in France itself. On Thursday, as the Israeli government announced a ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza, 430 Jewish immigrants from France arrived in Israel with the intention of permanently relocating. Of these, many came as entire families, with 195 children and 18 infants on the flights in. The numbers from France are to be expected-- polls...

Worried about global warming, a growing number of churches and other faith groups are divesting their holdings in fossil-fuel companies, which release large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. “The warning in Scripture that ‘the wages of sin is death’ could not be more literally true than it is in the case of fossil fuels,” said Serene Jones, president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary, whose board voted in June to divest its $108.4 million endowment of holdings in fossil-fuel companies. “While we realize that our endowment alone will hardly cause the fossil-fuel giants to...

Generally speaking, the Israelites of Christ’s time were frugal eaters. Frankly until about 100 years ago, frugality in eating was more imposed than chosen. The food was more scarce and less convenient than today. It’s availability was seasonable, and all the elements needed to be made from scratch, including hauling in the water from wells etc.Bread was the essential, basic food. So basic was it that in Hebrew “to eat bread” and “to have a meal” in the same thing. Bread was treated with great respect and many rules existed to preserve that reverence. Any crumbs of over the size...

I am asleep, but my heart is awake Song of Songs 5:2 Our sages tell us that “when King Solomon built the Holy Temple, knowing that it was destined to be destroyed, he built a place in which to hide the Ark, [at the end of] hidden, deep, winding passageways.”1 It was there that King Josiah placed the Ark twenty-two years before the Temple’s destruction, as related in the Book of Chronicles.2

Dozens of Rialto eighth-graders questioned whether the Holocaust occurred in essays written for an in-class assignment this spring. Rialto Unified School District administrators, besieged by criticism after the assignment became public in May, claimed at the time that none of the students who completed the assignment questioned or denied the Holocaust, but a survey of the students’ work by this news organization found numerous examples of students expressing doubt or flatly denying that the Holocaust occurred. :snip: “Students got high praise and grades for writing that the Holocaust was a hoax. I’m sick about that, I’m sick about that,” said...

The Mystery of the Copper Scroll By Chris Mitchell CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief Saturday, July 11, 2009 JERUSALEM, Israel - In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd wandered the hills of Qumran in search of a missing sheep. He threw a stone into a cave, hoping to drive the lost animal outside. Instead, the sound of shattered pottery drew the shepherd inside the cave. There he stumbled on the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century: the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Copper Scroll In the years that followed, archaeologists found eleven caves and more than 900 documents here at Qumran....

My dear friend Ali Sina mentioned in his most recent article that a Muslim professor, Hossein Askari, believes that Western nations lead the World in “Islamic values” and that most Muslim nations practice the least Islamic values. I have heard such nonsense before from some Muslims, some of whom were my relatives. I will never forget the strange look on my Christian American husband’s face when an elderly Muslim man visiting from Egypt told him: “You are such a fine young man, you have the character of a true Muslim.” It is not unusual for Muslims to describe non-Muslims whom...

A project named "The House of One," looking to create the world's first ever church, mosque and synagogue in Berlin, Germany, where people of different faiths can worship under one roof, is currently raising donations. "Under one roof: one synagogue, one mosque, one church. We want to use these rooms for our own traditions and prayers. And together we want to use the room in the middle for dialogue and discussion and also for people without faith," explained Pastor Gregor Hohberg, a Protestant parish priest, according to a BBC News report. "Berlin is a city where people come together from...

Click on the link to watch the video.

In 2012, the average New York Jew looks a little less like Jerry Seinfeld and a little more like Tevye the Milkman. New York’s Jews are poorer, less educated and more religious than they were 10 years ago, according to a landmark new study of the city’s Jewish population. They’re also less liberal: More than half of the Jews in New York City live in Orthodox or Russian-speaking homes, both of which lean heavily conservative. The study, conducted by UJA-Federation of New York, counted 1.5 million Jews in New York City, Long Island and Westchester, up from 1.4 million just...

Chaim Potok captured the strain of transition from religious traditionalism to artistic expression in his fictional character Asher Lev. As a young boy, Asher, a painter prodigy and the son of a chasidic luminary, is drawn to a Brooklyn museum where he surreptitiously views crucifixions and nudes. He subsequently paints such scenes. Asher’s mother tries to understand her son’s artistic longings, yet says in exasperation, “Your painting. It’s taken us to Jesus. And to the way they paint women. Painting is for goyim, Asher. Jews don’t draw and paint.” Asher responds, “Chagall is a Jew,” but his mother cuts him...

I live in a historically Jewish building in New York City. On most days, its two elevators service each section of this rather monolithic structure—just enough to keep up with the flow of residents going up and down. But come Friday evening, one of the cars is switched into Shabbos mode, meaning that it stops at every single floor automatically, backing the tenants up like resentful clogs in beige-yellow arteries. It does so for religious reasons, since many observant Jews avoid pressing electric buttons on Shabbat. [SNIP] Shabbos (or Shabbat) Elevators are common in Israel and in other dense centers...

Have you ever been to this website? If so, what is your opinion of it? All opinions are welcome. Does this website like Benny Hinn, TD Jakes, Charismatics, Billy Graham, Pope Francis, and others all at the same time? I am not absolutely sure of this, but it seems to. Link to Charisma Magazine below. My opinion of Charisma Magazine? Babylon.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's primary loss means Congress will soon say goodbye to its only Jewish Republican. And not only that; it also means there will likely be no Republicans in Congress who profess to be anything other than a Christian. According to data collected by the Pew Forum at the start of the 113th Congress last year, the GOP conference was 69 percent Protestant, 25 percent Catholic, 4 percent Mormon and 1 percent Orthodox Christian. Cantor (Va.) was the only member of any other faith on the Republican side in either the House or the Senate -- out...

Don’t get me wrong, as a Jewish person, I support with every fiber in my body the requirement, even the need for Jewish parents to circumcise their sons. But over the years, I’ve read tons of evidence proving both sides of the circumcision debate, and I have had no use for them. The only valid reason I see for the brutal attack with a sharp knife on a defenseless infant is if God said so.

Frightening article in the Telegraph: Gay Danish couples win right to marry in church. The country's parliament voted through the new law on same-sex marriage by a large majority, making it mandatory for all churches to conduct gay marriages. .... Under the law, individual priests can refuse to carry out the ceremony, but the local bishop must arrange a replacement for their church. I am sure at first most Catholic clergy will refuse and bishops will not comply but down the line, in two or three years, what will happen, and if this law were introduced into England, or the...

Orthodox Jewish activists drove Christian pilgrims out of the Cenacle, the “upper room” revered as the site of the Last Supper, on June 9. About 30 militants, including one member of the Israeli parliament, disrupted a prayer service being held by Christians. The building, which is also revered by Jews as the site of King David’s tomb, is owned by the Israeli government, and Christian services are ordinarily not permitted there. Ownership of the building in Jerusalem has become a contentious issue in Israeli politics. Pope Francis was granted permission to celebrate Mass in the Cenacle, despite protests from some...