Free Republic

Some 15,000 Messianic Jews currently live in Israel, but if you saw one on the street you would almost certainly fail to recognize any difference. They honor Jewish circumcision, bar-mitzvah, and wedding ceremonies, but believe Jesus is the messiah. The small community of Yad Hashmona, near Jerusalem, is home to a number of Messianic-Jewish families. They believe in Jesus – or Yeshua, as they call him – and in the teachings of the New Testament as well as the old. They are Jews in every sense, but for the most part keep this side of their faith to themselves. When...

OpinioNet Contributed Commentary OpinioNet Contributed Commentary OpinioNet Contributed Commentary - Carl Pearlston Date:  November 17, 2001 Where Have All the Christians Gone? In early November, the Los Angeles Times featured an article about a 14-year old Israeli boy murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in a bus attack. The article discussed the resultant incursions by Israel's army into the nominal territory of the Palestinian Authority, and talked of damage inflicted by Israeli forces "on the largely Christian city of Bethlehem and its residents." While this statement regarding Bethlehem being a Christian city would have been true 50 years ago when ...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) - The shrinking Christian population of Bethlehem is struggling to conceal its fears for the future after the victory for Islamists of Hamas in the Palestinian general election. The blue skies of a perfect Sunday morning in the birthplace of Jesus Christ failed to lift the gloom among the congregation attending mass at the Church of the Nativity in the centre of the West Bank's "little town" which now has many representatives from the radical Islamist group in parliament as Christians. Franciscan father Amjad Sabbara was putting on a brave face as he greeted the congregation...

A last Christmas in Palestine? By William John Hagan Canada Free Press Wednesday, December 21, 2005 Over two thousand years ago, in a town called Bethlehem, the first Christmas was celebrated with the birth of Jesus Christ. On that most holy of nights, a small group of people became the first Christians through the celebration of Christ’s virgin birth. It goes without saying that for a Christmas celebration to occur, the presence of a Christian people is a prerequisite. While Bethlehem, and much of the modern de facto state of Palestine, is the birth place of Christianity, it is also...

Since the Palestinian Authority’s takeover of Bethlehem in 1995, under the Oslo Accords with Israel, Bethlehem has been transformed from a Christian city into a Muslim city. Bethlehem’s remaining Christians now live in a condition of dhimmitude (a reference to the second-class citizenship Islam imposes on Christians) in the city of Jesus’ birth. The Palestinians brought with them a political system based on primitive tribal relations, where the power of one’s clan became a substitute for the law. As a consequence, Christians have suffered civil outrage and criminal violence without recourse to justice. Christians have been refusing to live under...