Free Republic

...Israel’s first king, Saul, only governs some of these people. His successor, David, pulls all the tribes together under him. David’s son, Solomon, does little to hold them in place. When Solomon dies in 930 B.C.E., the kingdom fractures into big northern Israel and meager southern Judah. The north names its capital Samaria. The southern kings retain David’s capital at Jerusalem. As scholar Raymond Brown points out, the distance between Samaria and Jerusalem was 35 miles—closer than Baltimore and Washington, D.C., which share an airport. But proximity doesn’t equal intimacy. Eventually, Samaria becomes a catchword for the entire northern region....

1. DEAD SEA DEAD SEA BLOOMS FLORAL WONDERLAND FOR FIRST TIME: EZEKIEL’S PROPHECY COMING TO FRUITION? The Dead Sea has slowly been coming back to life, with sinkholes on the shores filling up with fish. But last winter, for the first time in memory, the shores filled with blossoming flowers. 2. PROPHECY APPEARS: RIVERS FLOW FROM JERUSALEM INTO THE DEAD SEA Breaking a 76-year record for rainfall, rivers flowed from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, creating a prophetic vision of rivers flowing in the Judean Desert. RABBIS SAY, “IT’S TIME” 3. ISRAEL’S TOP RABBI: “I’M CURRENTLY IN DISCUSSIONS WITH THE...

A French law professor has been placed under police protection after referring to religions, including Islam, as “sexually transmitted” during a lecture to around 600 students in October. The 50-year-old associate professor, who works at Aix-Marseille University (AMU), is alleged to have said both Islam and Judaism are, after a fashion, sexually transmitted. She said: “One of the biggest problems we have with Islam, and it is not the only one, unfortunately, is that Islam does not recognise freedom of conscience. It’s still absolutely terrifying.” The French Human Rights League has filed an official criminal complaint for the use of...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are using the teachings of Jesus to help train soldiers. And why not? He is the Jewish Messiah according to many prophecies, and his teachings are rooted in the Hebrew scriptures, reflecting the best in Jewish wisdom and faith. Still, reports have been coming out on Israeli media from IDF soldiers complaining about using the New Testament teachings as part of their military preparation. In one training program for battlefield medics, IDF officers are using the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of caring for those who have been injured, including Jews, Arabs,...

Fr. Kevin Robinson is back in the news as his lawsuit against the governor of New Jersey moves forward on appeal. His lawsuit, one that I have sympathy for, has received nation-wide attention. He is seeking the right to preside over religious services despite the governor’s Covid-19 lockdown orders. At the bottom of the thread is a video of his Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson explaining the issues. While the cause behind the lawsuit is a worthy one, it is unfortunate that Fr. Robinson is the poster boy for this one. Fr. Robinson is a priest of the SSPX,...

The Tzfat-based Rabbi Alon Anava recently shared a calculation that reveals a significant window of opportunity for the imminent arrival of Moshiach (Messiah) and how we should be preparing ourselves for it. The 50-minute lecture, Is the end of the world near? Torah secret that reveals what’s coming! was published on YouTube a few days ago and, at the time of this writing, has been viewed close to 27,000 times. WHEN WILL MOSHIACH COME? First, Anava addresses the common misunderstanding that it’s forbidden to estimate the time of the arrival of Moshiach. He says that this teaching applied 3,000 years...

Hurricane Iota becomes Cat 5 as it approaches Central America. It is the latest Cat 5 on record in terms of latest in season. It is going to impact almost the same area as Hurricane Eta and only a few weeks after Hurricane Eta. Please pray for the poor people of Central America.

Rabbi Isser Zalman Weisberg, a rabbi at Machon Mishne Torah who is a follower of the Chabad branch of Hassidic Judaism, commented on the still uncertain outcome of the presidential election. Nothing legally happened The rabbi began his video by citing media sources claiming that Joe Biden won the presidential election. Rabbi Weisberg emphasized that “nothing legally happened” since the media do not determine the winner of the election. The victor is officially certified by the Electoral College and then by the Senate, House of Representatives, and the National Archives. Representatives from each state’s electoral college meet in their respective...

Recently we shared a report from Popular Mechanics, that the Earth has been pulsating every 26 seconds for the past 60 years, and it has left scientists unable to give an explanation and some speculated that it could be a harmonic phenomenon, a regular seismic chirp caused by the sunÂ’s energy, or a beacon drawing scientists to its source to begin a treasure hunt according to the report. However, now a group of Bible Scholars has come forward with an interesting claim. They claim the 26-second duration of the microseismic pulse is explained by the gematria (Hebrew numerology) of GodÂ’s...

The Sanhedrin has come out with an official statement blessing President Trump in his bid to become the incumbent president of the United States: OFFICIAL SANHEDRIN PROCLAMATION To the honorable President Donald J. Trump, We, the Nascent Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, Bless you! We pray for your overwhelming victory in the elections. The basic problem of America and of the whole of the Western world is the abandonment of the Judeo-Christian value system, based upon the belief in God. You are well known – as was your father – as believers in God, as were your successful predecessors: President Eisenhower, who...

efore the Democratic Party’s lurch to the Left and his selection by Barack Obama, Joe Biden saw himself as a quasi-Dixiecrat. In his first try for the Democratic Presidential he bragged that he had received an award from George Wallace and boasted that “Delawareans were on the side of the South in the Civil War.” In 1982, as he was probably beginning to plan that campaign, Biden thought he could appeal to the perceived nativism of the Dixiecrats by publicly threatening to cut off aid to the Jewish state. In July of that year, he used an appearance of Israeli...

Almost all the polls say that US President Donald Trump is heading towards defeat at the hands of his Democrat challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden next month. But Robert Cahaly, who heads the Trafalgar Group polling firm, disagrees. Cahaly was the only major pollster that accurately called the 2016 presidential race. In an interview with The Political Trade podcast last week, Cahaly said his data show Trump headed for another upset victory Nov. 3.Cahaly said that today, as in 2016, the disparity between his numbers and the marquis polling firms' numbers owes to the latter's systematic neglect of what...

<p>Click on the link to watch the video. And please observe the rules for caucused threads.</p>

Three Rockland County Jewish congregations are suing the state and Gov. Cuomo, saying he engaged in a "streak of anti-Semitic discrimination," while NYC churches alleged in a separate suit that they are being unfairly punished Three Rockland County Jewish congregations are suing New York state and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, saying he engaged in a “streak of anti-Semitic discrimination” with a recent crackdown on religious gatherings to reduce the state’s coronavirus infection rate. The Manhattan federal court lawsuit filed late Wednesday accused the Democrat of making negative, false, and discriminatory statements about the Jewish Orthodox community as he imposed new coronavirus...

10/16/2020: Marking 74 Years Since the "Purim Fest 1946!" Purim Code October 16, 1946 -- Shortly before Nazi Julius Streicher was executed, he yelled, "Purimfest 1946!" As it turned out, details of the Nuremberg trials and the sentencings had some unusual parallels with the Scroll of Esther. Among other things, the peculiar small letters within the list of Haman's sons (chapter 9) spell out the year of the events: (5)707. As he reached the platform Streicher cried out, 'Now it goes to G-d.' He was pushed the last two steps to the mortal spot beneath the hangman's rope. The rope...

Restrictions are broken down into three color-coded categoriesHundreds of members of the Borough Park Orthodox community took to the streets Tuesday night defying orders to disperse and lighting a fire in protest of new state-mandated restrictions imposed on area synagogues, schools and non-essential businesses over a COVID-19 surge. One large crowd huddled closely together at the corner of 50th Street and 15th avenue at about 9 p.m. as community activist Heshy Tischler ripped Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio over the order that shuts down schools completely and limits houses of worship to 10 people in certain COVID-19 hot spots....

The Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Places, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, held a prayer this morning at the Western Wall plaza for the healing of US President Trump. The prayer was held in the presence of the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Rabbi Lau and Rabbi Yosef Shlita, and the US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was present.

When he dedicated the Temple he built on Mount Moriah, King Solomon prayed that God’s house would be a center of prayer for all the peoples of the world. Now, in the wake of the recent Abraham Accords – the normalization agreement entered into by Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – the possibility exists that Solomon’s aspiration could be recreated. Part of the avowed rationale for the accords was to create enhanced access for all Muslims to worship at al-Aqsa Mosque. This was lofty, with humanitarian intent, and a realpolitik gesture designed to discredit both the reflex accusation...

An ultra-Orthodox Israeli student now living in Colombia said that he spotted a kosher red heifer on Wednesday that would be available immediately upon the coming of the Messiah reports Radio 2000. The man took footage of the animal, and claims that halakhic (Jewish legal) authorities have confirmed that at first glance, it is indeed kosher. The student purchased the cow for an undisclosed but “large” sum of money. Currently, the Temple Institute who approved its purchase is waiting to ensure that she doesn’t grow any white or black hairs. If it doesn’t it will be officially declared a red...

In Saqqara, in Ankhmahon’s tomb, Visir of the Pharaoh Teti Dynasty (c. 2345 BCE) there is a bas-relief with a representation of circumcision. Below is a papyrus illustrating the operation in vivid color. Have you ever wondered what the oldest illustration of a circumcision looked like? Of course you haven’t, but we’ll tell you anyway. A bas-relief—a type of sculptural technique in which the sculpted elements remain attached to their background—dating back to 2,400 BCE and depicting two men being circumcised was found in an Egyptian tomb built for Ankhmahor, a high-ranking official during the sixth dynasty of Egypt. The...