Free Republic

When Yuval and Lin Djamchid decided to open a café in Eden Hotel, their intimate, 24-room hotel in Jerusalem, they knew they wanted it to be kosher, but not to have the traditional supervision from the Jerusalem rabbinate. So they chose Private Supervision, a new movement led by Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz, an Orthodox rabbi who is also a city councilor from the Yerushalmim movement, which is trying to revitalize Jerusalem. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter “It was a matter of principle,” Yuval Djamchid told The Media Line. “We don’t like the Rabbinate and what it represents. We have enough...

Director of Vatican Insider, the papal house vaticanist Andrea Tornielli, explains why his articles and products published by his platform are of particular attention. This also applies to this article by the AJC representatives to the Holy See, where Tornielli allows Jews and Muslims to designate the conditions about which the Holy See should conduct a canonical recognition of the SSPX. Vice versa this means: Should these conditions not be met, it would open up "serious questions". It's a statement in the article of the American Jewish Comittee that someone could read as a threat. Anyway, Tornielli offered the American...

The Sunni-Shia Divide and Islam’s Puzzling Originsby Emmet Scott In my Impact of Islam (2014) and Guide to the Phantom Dark Age (2014) I argued in some detail that Muhammad was a fictitious character conjured to life by the Umayyad Caliphs in the late seventh century in order to justify and legitimize the Arab usurpation of the Persian Sassanid Empire. In the above studies I also suggested that the earliest “Islam” was spread by the Sassanid Empire and that the great “Arab Conquests” of Anatolia, Syria and Egypt were in reality carried out by Persian armies. Certainly the earliest...

The Knesset passed a controversial bill that allows local Orthodox rabbinates to bar non-Orthodox Jewish conversion ceremonies in publicly funded mikvahs. The bill, which was introduced by the haredi Orthodox United Torah Judaism party and opposed by many North American Jewish leaders, was passed Monday night in a 41-35 vote, The Jerusalem Post reported. The new law will be implemented in nine months. Under the law, the municipal rabbinates can determine who may use the mikvahs, or Jewish ritual baths, in their purview. Immersion in the mikvah is part of most conversion ceremonies. The measure aims to override an Israeli...

A conversation between two of the most distinguished rabbis in Israel indicates scholars of the Torah see unmistakable signs of the coming of the Messiah. What’s more, in the Messianic era, Christians will become a source of Torah learning, as believers in Jesus Christ rediscover the source of their beliefs in both Judaism and the Torah. The conversation took place between Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch and Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, both of whom are regarded as leading experts in the Torah. During the conversation, Rabbi Kanievsky reportedly predicted the imminent coming of the Messiah, before the end of the year after the...

I rarely write about American politics. Here in Israel, existential national threats prevent me from dwelling on America’s problems. In Israel, Arabs butcher our thirteen-year-old daughters in their bedrooms and gun down our brothers and fathers, and the impotent leadership responds in typical fashion— with powerful speeches to comfort the bereaved. So naturally the demise of America cannot take up much of my time. But that doesn’t mean I’m disinterested. I am concerned with America’s welfare. As a Jew with a sense of history, I appreciate the haven America provided us throughout the last few centuries, when most countries offered...

According to ethnographers and Israeli geneticists who have investigated the matter — and even most members of his own ethnic group in India — Hanoch Haokip’s claim to be descended from one of Israel’s so-called “Lost Tribes” is, at best, highly debatable. But Haokip, a member of a small subgroup of indigenous peoples from a remote tribal area of East India, has no doubt about the matter. During an interview in the northern Israeli town of Akko, where he lives today, Haokip, whose group is known as the Bnei Menashe, spoke with some indignation about having been “interrogated” by the...

The name was terrible, but the “K Disease” was not a lethal virus. It was actually the clever invention of Professor Giovanni Borromeo and a religious of the Hospital of the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, to save the lives of dozens of Jews persecuted by the Nazis during World War II.When the SS entered the Fatebenefratelli hospital located on the Tiber Island in Rome, medical personnel and religious explained to the Germans that behind the doors of two special wards, there were patients suffering from this terrible K Disease, some of whom were terminally ill. The...

David Paskin staged a walkout during Trump's speech at AIPAC. Two months later, his contract with Temple Beth David in Palm Beach Gardens was unexpectedly not renewed. A Florida rabbi must leave his pulpit after his protest of Donald Trump’s speech at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference riled congregants. David Paskin, who serves as rabbi of the Conservative Temple Beth David synagogue in the south Florida city of Palm Beach Gardens, will leave his position in July. In March, Paskin was one of a group of Conservative rabbis who led a protest of Trump’s speech at the...

An incredible class about the infamous lineage of King David. The Book of Ruth is read by Jews during the holiday of Shavuos (this year Saturday night the 11th.) How could Boaz have married Rus (Ruth) the Moavite? The Torah says explicitly not to marry Amonites and Moavites? Scholars-- feast your ears. Christian apologize-rs...come hear the majesty and secrets of the Torah. NOTE: The rabbi uses some Hebrew and Yiddish but translates everything at least once. PM me or consult your local Orthodox Jewish rabbi for clarification. Why does King David come from a seemingly illicit relationship and lineage? What...

Gallup released a new poll this week that examines people’s positions on abortion based on their religious affiliation. The poll asked people about a series of moral issues, including abortion and doctor-assisted suicide, and then examined their answers based on their religious affiliation. Researchers found major differences among religious groups, with Protestants, Catholics and Mormons taking a pro-life stance and Jews and the non-religious taking a more liberal stance. Gallup reports: Jews and those with no religious preferences have virtually identical views on the morality of abortion, doctor-assisted suicide, gay-lesbian relations and cloning animals. Jews are somewhat less likely than...

Sr. Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad, a Swedish religious sister, will be canonized by Pope Francis on Sunday Pope Francis will on Sunday officially recognize the sanctity of Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad, who readily risked her life in the midst of the Second World War, opening the doors of the Roman convent where she was the superior to take in persecuted Jews. Piero Piperno, 87, owes his life to this Swedish woman who, after having been a nurse in New York, embraced Catholicism and joined the Order of the Brigittine Sisters. Piperno, who was 15 years old when Mother Elizabeth took in his...

Even jokes have their limits. During his show May 26, Conan O’Brien invited actress and recent Judiaism convert Natasha Leggero onto his show. Leggero praised her new religion for treating abortion as “cool” enough to have on “every Jewish holiday.” After all, she reasoned, it’s good to have a back-up to fall on, just like AAA for cars. Besides performing as a stand-up comedian, the 42-year-old created and stars in Comedy Central’s Another Period and has acted in films including Let’s Be Cops, Neighbors and He’s Just Not That Into You. After discussing her recent marriage, Leggero informed Conan that...

An interfaith group is laying the groundwork for what will likely be the world’s first ever joint house of prayer. The center of worship, which will be called the "House of One," will combine simultaneous Jewish, Muslim, and Christian prayer services. The House of One is planned to be built on the site of Berlin’s first church, the Petrikirche. One of the organizers of the interfaith group behind the planned church/mosque/synagogue, Rabbi Tovia Ben Chorin, said that the House of One is a reminder that despite the dark history of Berlin in the 20th century it is now a center...

Cardinal Kurt Koch said the ‘Sunday culture in Christianity is very weak’, urging for a more home-orientated approachThe Vatican’s most senior official on relations with Jewish communities has insisted the Catholic Church must learn from the centrality of the home and Shabbat in Jewish life, saying the Sunday “culture in Christianity is very weak”. The frank comments from Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the pontifical commission for religious relations with the Jews, came during an exclusive interview as he joined leading theologians from both faiths for a two-day symposium on enhancing relations. “The most important thing we can learn from...

Most Americans say they believe in God. And around the world, religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims all say they believe in God, as do many people who do not identify with any formal religion. But this statement is actually meaningless. To cite but one example, the God in whose name Muslims cut innocent people’s throats and rape women cannot be the same God as the God of those who believe that God hates such actions. Who, then, argues that all those who say they believe in God believe in the same God? Two groups make this argument. The first consists...

Like Republicans across the country, Satmar Republicans are fed up with the failed policies of the Obama administration. The burdens placed on small businesses by overregulation, higher taxes and Obamacare are felt here, too. Parents struggling to make ends meet dream of a president who will be a crusader for school choice. The administration’s hostility to religious liberty sends a chill down the spine of every religious Jewish voter, Republican or Democrat. So naturally, many Jewish Republicans are turning towards Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz achieved national renown for his efforts to defund Obamacare before it launched in 2014, leading to...

Four days a week, Zippel drives across Utah’s sometimes treacherous terrain, visiting 100 Jewish adolescents. They are 10-18 year olds, each facing their own struggle: drug abuse, violent behaviors or eating disorders. In 1996, a young rabbi walked onto the grounds of Youthcare, a residential treatment center for troubled teens in Provo, Utah on a mission. He was looking for a certain Akiva Greenfield*, a gangly Israeli teenager. When he finally found him, the smiling rabbi introduced himself. Rabbi Benny Zippel from Chabad wanted him to know that he had a friend in Utah. “If there is anything I can...

Jewish holidays are not merely a commemoration of an event in time. The time of year in which the amiracle occurred was an opportune time for the conception of that miracle. As we make our way toward the Purim holiday, we are entering a time zone in which the all the Haman's of the world can fail and Jewish redemption is born. The death and downfall of Stalin is an example of a miraculous, yet untold, modern day Purim story. Joseph Stalin, tyrant of communist Russia dubbed the invincible “man of steel,” who murdered approximately 20,000,000 of his own people,...

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