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I've never been in Tel Aviv or Haifa for Tisha B'Av, but my guess is that it probably doesn't feel too much different than Tisha B'Av in Seattle--a few hardy souls sitting on the floor of their synagogues in the evening and then spending the day itself struggling to keep awake through some talks and appropriate films, while the rest of the city goes about its usual business oblivious to the significance of the day. That's not how Tisha B'Av is observed in Jerusalem--the focal point of much of the mourning. Here,as restaurants and places of entertainment close down, thousands...

Violence erupted at Jerusalem's holiest site on Sunday when Israeli riot police clashed with stone-throwing Palestinian protestors. The most serious unrest in Jerusalem's sacred Old City in five months came after days of disturbances in the West Bank triggered by a declaration that two Jewish shrines on Palestinian territory would be declared Israeli heritage sites. At least 14 protestors and four policemen were hurt during the clashes as battles raged both in the winding alleyways of Jerusalem's walled Old City and at the hilltop compound of the al-Aqsa mosque where the trouble first started.

Israeli police fired stun grenades on Sunday to disperse 150 Palestinians who hurled stones at Jewish worshipers visiting a sensitive religious site in the Old City before the start of the holiest day for Jews. Two policemen were lightly wounded, a spokesman said, and Palestinian medics said they evacuated a Palestinian man suffering from a head injury. Police restored calm and closed the complex after the incident. The incident occurred before Yom Kippur in the complex known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Harm al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary). It houses al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the...

RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES IN ISRAEL PERTAIN TO KING DAVID, JESUS Aug 17, 05 | 4:55 pm Working a short distance from each other near Jerusalem's Old City, archaeologists have made two major discoveries in recent months, one pertaining to King David and the other to Jesus.

Aug 11, 2005 By Erin Curry Baptist Press JERUSALEM (BP)--What is believed to be the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus healed a man blind from birth in John 9, has been unearthed in Jerusalem, and a Southern Baptist archeologist is convinced the find is authentic. “I’ve seen it. It’s a phenomenal, monumental pool,” Steven Ortiz, associate professor of biblical archaeology and director of the Center for Archaeological Research at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, told Baptist Press. Ortiz made a trip to Israel in recent weeks and walked along the site with one of the field staff working on the...

More than a quarter million people attended a massive prayer rally at the Western Wall Wednesday to beg their Heavenly Father to have mercy and annul the expulsion decree. Former Ashkenazi and Sephardi Chief Rabbis Avraham Shapira and Mordechai Eliyahu, Shas Party Leader and former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, members of the hareidi-religious Council of Torah Sages, former MK Rabbi Menachem Porush and other prominent Hassidic rabbis all took part in the massive event. The gathering held special significance in that it marked a rare uniting of leading, influential Rabbis from the hareidi, Sephardic, and National Religious sectors together...

<p>Archaeologists working in the City of David have uncovered the edge of what they believe is the Pool of Siloam from the time of Jesus (cf. John 9).  The photo at left shows the city of Jerusalem with the Temple Mount and the City of David.  The excavations are on the west side of the City of David.  Letter "A" is located where the traditional "Pool of Siloam" is and Letter "B" shows the area of the present excavations.</p>

Workers repairing a sewage pipe in the Old City of Jerusalem have discovered the biblical Pool of Siloam, a freshwater reservoir that was a major gathering place [a mikvah, where Jews do a ritual cleansing] for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city and the reputed site where Jesus cured a man blind from birth, according to the Gospel of John. "Scholars have said that there wasn't a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit" to illustrate a point, said New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary. "Now we have found...

Building The Old City 14:17 Oct 12, '03 / 16 Tishrei 5764 Tens of thousands of people are expected to visit Jerusalem daily during this Sukkot holiday week, and dozens of events are planned throughout the country. After three years of difficult renovations on a burnt-out hovel, a new Jewish property will be dedicated in the Old Citys Moslem Quartertoday: Beit Reuven, named for a victim of the 1929 Arab pogroms in the Holy Land. Welfare Minister Zevulun Orlev of the National Religious Party will affix the mezuzah to the doorpost this afternoon, and a Jewish family will move...

Report: Muslim Strength Up in Old City by Yated Ne'eman Staff Jews and Christians together make up about 30 percent of the population of Jerusalem's Old City, making them minorities in a place that is central to their religion, said speakers at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. Israel Kimhi of the institute said the proportion of Jews is increasing, from 8.6 percent in 1995 to 11.34 percent in 2002. There are some 33,500 people living in the Old City today. Kimhi said most of the Jewish population growth has been in the Muslim Quarter, which now houses 800 Jews....