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Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri A controversy is raging in Israel, in evangelical circles in the U.S. and on kabbalah web forums worldwide following the posthumous release of what a revered Sephardic rabbi claimed to be the name of the Messiah. When Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri died in February 2006, somewhere between the age of 106 and 117, 300,000 attended his funeral in Jerusalem. The Baghdad-born kabbalist had gained notoriety around the world for issuing apocalyptic warnings and for saying he personally met the long-awaited Jewish Messiah in November 2003. Before Kaduri died, he reportedly wrote the name of the Messiah on...

9 March 2007 Crystal amulet poses question on early Christianity An overlooked crystal amulet in the National Museum suggests new understandings about Christianity's origins in Denmark King Harold Bluetooth brought Christianity to Denmark roughly 1100 years ago. At least that's what he declared on the Jelling Stone located in Jutland: 'King Haraldr ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Thyrvé, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.' A tiny crystal amulet in the National Museum's archives suggests something quite different though, that...

Imagine a 20th Century that still had religious inquisitions, a world where the medieval Catholic Church still controlled everything and everyone. Where people were still burned at the stake, no religious tolerance and a place where everyone feared for their lives. Welcome to the world of Rex Mundi. The first time that I heard about Rex Mundi was while working on the set of Tim Sullivans' Driftwood about a year ago. Famed Rock 'N' Roll KISS photographer turned movie producer Barry Levine mentioned that they were working with Johnny Depp on a film. Sworn to secrecy and under threats of...

A stray dog which refused to budge from the home of a recently deceased rabbi has finally moved on after a "redemption ceremony" at an Israeli cemetery. The dog, pictured in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper Monday, showed up at the house of the late Rabbi Nahman Dubinky. Rabbis expert in Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, concluded the animal could be possessed by a tortured soul seeking redemption. Ultra-Orthodox Jews traditionally do not keep dogs as pets. "Sometimes the souls of sinners, such as adulterers or people who slept with non-Jews, enter the body of a dog," Rabbi Yitzhak Basri, a Kabbalah scholar,...

LONDON/MPHANDULA, Malawi (Reuters) - Madonna feels responsible for the children of the world and has found herself a "big, big project" to help orphans in Malawi. Gwyneth Paltrow declares "I am African" in a new advertisement for a charity working in Africa. The continent has long been a favorite destination for celebrity campaigners, going back to 1954 when Danny Kaye became UNICEF's goodwill ambassador. U2's Bono and fellow Irish rocker Bob Geldof are Africa veterans, and more recently Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have brought Hollywood gloss to the continent. But the latest flood of stars searching for a good...

Pop star Madonna is reportedly close to dumping Kabbalah, a mystical form of Judaism that she has rather publicly embraced recently. Friends say the singer has talked of loosening her red Kabbalah wristband as she wearies of the religion, the Independent reported Sunday. She also is tired of the financial burdens associated with being a devotee and mindful, too, of the stress her interest in the Kabbalah has put on her marriage to Guy Ritchie. "The singer's links to the version of Kabbalah that she follows are so intimate now — personally and financially — that withdrawal would be difficult,...

Oh that wacky Hollywood, only in tinsel town could there be a battle of trendy religions. In fact, it almost seems like a bit of a competition between the two heavyweight cults. tPC fave Jeannette Walls says Kabbalah has won round one: 'The two religions - which are all the rage among the celeb set - have reportedly been vying for high-profile celebrity followers, and few are as coveted as former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and her hubby, soccer superstar David Beckham. The twosome is considered England's hottest couple, and celeb-watchers there follow them obsessively. "It appears that there has...

US pop diva Madonna wants to buy a house in the Israeli town of Rosh Pina, where the ancient Jewish Kabbalah tradition expects the Messiah to appear at the end of the world. Yediot Aharonot said the owner of a 100-year-old, ramshackle five-bedroom villa overlooking the Sea of the Galilee had been recently contacted several times by representatives of the superstar with a view to selling his property. According to the same source, Madonna wants to renovate the building into a centre of study of mystical Jewish texts pored over by Kabbalah followers. The self-proclaimed Material Girl, a keen aficionado...

Famed Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri was laid to rest at Har Hamenuhot in Givat Shaul late Sunday afternoon. Over 300,000 people, including rabbis and public figures, took part in the funeral procession. The eulogies and procession began from the Nahalat Yitzhak Yeshiva in Jerusalem's Bukharian Quarter at 12:00 p.m. Among those who eulogized Kaduri were Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and President Moshe Katsav. Former foreign minister Silvan Shalom and his wife Judy were also in attendance. Magen David Adom provided 10 ambulances and 22 motorbikes to secure the funeral procession, and had also positioned a number of ambulances throughout...

Elder Kabbalist Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri passed away Saturday night at Jerusalem's Bikur Cholim Hospital. His funeral will take place Sunday at noon. Rav Kaduri, born in 1898, was 108 years old. He was hospitalized for 13 days prior to his death. Rabbi Kaduri's funeral will set out at 12 PM Sunday from Jerusalem's Nahalat Yitzchak Yeshiva, which he headed. The Yeshiva is located in 19 David Street in the capital's Bucharian neighborhood. The procession will continue until Har HaMenuchot. Arutz-7 Hebrew Radio show host Yehoshua Meiri, a student of Rabbi Kaduri, visited Rabbi Kaduri at his hospital bedside two weeks...

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU Sharon targeted with 'death curse' Extremists used ritual against Rabin 1 month before he was assassinated Posted: July 26, 2005 1:59 p.m. Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Fringe activists held a midnight kabbalistic ritual in an ancient cemetery calling for angels of death to kill Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and thwart his Gaza withdrawal plan, participants in the ceremony told WND. The same individuals used the ritual against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin one month before his assassination in 1995. The activists said they performed a 'Pulsa Dinura' – a kabbalistic ceremony in which...

Police arrest Sunday Shaul Youdkevitch, head of Kabbalah Center in Israel, on suspicion he extracted money from cancer patient, convinced her donations will make her recover from illness A woman suffering from cancer was talked into paying tens of thousands of dollars to the Israeli Kabbalah Center, on the pretext that the donation would help to improve her condition. After her death at the age of fifty, the woman's husband filed a complaint against the head of the center, Shaul Youdkevitch, who was consequently arrested by the police Sunday. Youdkevitch, one of the main figures in Kabbalah studies worldwide and...

Back when she was Catholic, Madonna drew the ire of the Vatican with such ditties as "Like a Prayer." Now a Kabbalah enthusiast, the Material Girl is still feeling the wrath of religious leaders. The artist otherwise known as Esther has come under fire from religious scholars in Israel for using the name of a revered Kabbalist rabbi in a song featured on her upcoming album, Confessions on a Dance Floor. According to local reports, rabbis charged with looking after the grave of Yitzhak Luria, a 16th century Jewish mystic buried in the northern town of Safed, criticized Madonna for...

WORD that Madonna's upcoming album includes a paean to a 16th-century Jewish mystic has prompted the rabbis who guard his legacy to accuse the pop idol of sacrilege and hint at divine punishment. The Confessions on a Dance Floor collection includes a song titled Isaac - in reference, entertainment media say, to Rabbi Isaac Luria, founder of the Kabbalah school of mysticism which counts Madonna, 47, as one of its devotees. The custodians of Rabbi Luria's tomb and seminary in the northern Israeli town of Safed accused her of breaking a taboo. "There is a prohibition in Jewish law against...

Israel's leading known Kabbalistic Elder, Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri called upon worldwide Jewry Tuesday night to return to Israel due to the natural disasters which threaten to strike the world. In a class between between the Mincha (afternoon) and Maariv (evening) prayers at his Jerusalem yeshiva seminary, Rabbi Kaduri issued the following call:”This declaration I find fitting to issue for all of the Jews of the world to hear. It is incumbent upon them to return to the Land of Israel due to terrible natural disasters which threaten the world. In the future, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will...

I thought being a Jew was going to carry me. But after two seasons of making sitcom pilots that didn't land on the fall schedule, I needed a new religion to further my Hollywood career. I was going to have to choose between Scientology and Kabbalah Center.

Channel 10 Executive Producer Avi Barzilai on Wednesday repulsed the idea of broadcasting a tape of the Pulsa Denura ceremony against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, calling the rite "a despicable ceremony by despicable people bought and broadcast by individuals who pretend to be journalists and would do anything in order to raise their ratings." "As a senior journalist," he told Army Radio, "I don't regard them as members of the profession," Barzilai continued. Israel Segal - chief editor of Channel 2's current affairs program Mishal Ham that acquired the tape for $5,000 - claimed that the moment the tape became...

Far-right activists instigated a pulsa denura - Aramaic for 'lashes of fire' - death curse against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last Thursday night in an effort to thwart the upcoming disengagement plan. The ceremony was held late Thursday night at the gravesite of Shlomo Ben-Yosef, a Betar member who was hanged by the British in 1938 for firing on an Arab bus in protest of numerous attacks by Arabs on Jewish targets. Twenty married men, including rabbis and kabalists, participated in the ceremony. All 20, including Yosef Dayan - who instigated the same curse several months prior to the assassination...

RETURN TO PUBLICATIONS HOME ISSUES Kabbalah: Fact or Fiction? by Lev Leigh -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article originally appeared in ISSUES 12:2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, emissary of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, has a reputation of presenting Judaism as a vibrant, spiritual experience and not merely as a set of laws and prohibitions. Carlebach tells the story of his visit to an Israeli army unit during the Lebanese War: "I met the I.D.F. chaplain and asked him 'How is everything?' And he responded, 'Fine. The meat is kosher…' "So I said, 'If I wanted good salami, I wouldn't come to Lebanon for...

New Take on Ancient Jewish Spiritual Teachings Has Drawn Celebrities and Criticism Jun. 17, 2005 - Most people don't have a clue what the spiritual movement Kabbalah is, though they may be aware it has something to do with a parade of stars from Madonna to Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher to Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton wearing red strings on their wrists. Kabbalah has become a multimillion-dollar empire with more than 40 branches all over the world. But is the Kabbalah of the stars the same Kabbalah that Jewish men in Israel have been quietly studying for...